


Alpha Incognito

by VitaeLampada



Series: Soul Possessions [2]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Academy Era, Christmas Fluff, F/M, M/M, Spock/Uhura primary, Team Building, canadian rockies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-12
Updated: 2016-12-23
Packaged: 2018-08-22 02:54:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 30,647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8269961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VitaeLampada/pseuds/VitaeLampada
Summary: A Christmas interlude in an ongoing Spuhura/Spyota romance.  It reveals just how much effort a half Vulcan Commander will make to organise the perfect gifts for his beloved Nyota (or should that be Nei'rrh?)  And it tests Uhura's xeno-cultural and communications knowledge in a simulation designed to show Starfleet cadets that there is more than one way to define success.A follow-on fic from "The Architecture of Emotion" (TAOE).  Strongly recommend reading TAOE first, because "Alpha Incognito" makes numerous references to events which happen in the earlier story.





	1. Joy

**Author's Note:**

> For the many wonderful readers who followed "The Architecture of Emotion": this story picks up a few weeks later, during the 2257 Christmas break.
> 
> For the wonderful readers who might have picked this story first: I think it will be tricky to understand my version of Spock and Nyota without reading TAOE. I tried to write some cheat notes, but they started to become another chapter by themselves. Self-serving as it might sound, I'd really urge you to read "The Architecture of Emotion" before "Alpha Incognito".
> 
> All Vulcan words taken from The Vulcan Language Dictionary at http://www.starbase-10.de/vld/

Spock woke, and rolled onto his back.  The other side of his bed was empty.

Overhead, the spherical plume of _viscum album_ swayed gently, and the white ribbon which fastened it to the ceiling fluttered, caught by one of the timed ventilation draughts. He spotted tiny metallic glints on the plant’s leaves and white berries, which had escaped his notice yesterday.

But he was not concerned.  He would allow this in recognition of the season.  

During his childhood, Christmas did not go entirely unobserved.  Each year, at the same time, his mother received a shipment from her younger brother, an atmospherically regulated container delivering these items: a holly wreath, oranges, dates and unshelled walnuts.  She would slice the oranges, dry them in the sun and combine the fruit with Vulcan spices.  Spock recalled Christmas as a week during which small bowls of this mixture sat in every room of the house, giving off fragrance.  The wreath hung in the front hall.  Dates and nuts were served with their meals.

So he was familiar and comfortable with the use of dead plant material to mark the occasion.  What daunted him was the brightly lit garishness of Christmas as celebrated in San Francisco. When Cadet Jadillu begged to be permitted to decorate his office and apartment, he was grateful that Nyota stepped in to regulate what could and could not be brought into his surroundings. 

She dictated a list of contraband.  “No baubles, no glitter, no tinsel or bright colours.  Nothing that flashes on and off, or anything which uses chemical luminescence to glow in the dark.  No innocent looking objects which employ a motion detector to set off sound or video files.” 

Gaila had seemed displeased, and said that did not leave her with much.

“Keep it natural,” Nyota had urged.  And the Orion’s efforts, as usual, proved admirable.  She should not have been discouraged by the fact that Uhura inspected the apartment after she finished and removed the soya candle with embedded cinnamon bark, which sat on the coffee table. 

It had merely been relocated.  Spock kicked away the sheets which had tangled round his legs, and got up.  He made the bed.  He perceived that the faint, sweet scent of the spice still lingered in the air – not what it had been, yet enough to set his mind wandering back in time as he turned and walked towards the hygiene station. 

The return from Vulcan had been the start of a new stage in his relationship with Nyota Uhura, and it required some decisions and adjustments.  Cohabitation was not a foregone conclusion.   Gaila continued to need the friend and mentor she gained from her reassignment to Messier 18 Cluster.  And Nyota would take his Subspace Communications class in January.  Captain Pike’s assurances notwithstanding, neither of them wanted the scrutiny which would come if they visibly flouted fraternisation rules. 

So they chose to keep their living arrangements the same.  Spock linked their respective PADDs with a shared diary and they planned their time together -- an increasingly challenging task.  In November Nyota was accepted by Starfleet Diplomatic Services as a relief translator.  This was a welcome supplement to her student allowance, but meant she could be called upon at short notice.

And in December Spock received an unexpected request to administer the Kobayashi Maru.  During the first two weeks of that month he saw more of Cadet Jadillu than her roommate.  The pair of them were required to make detail adjustments to the scenario, run test simulations and rewrite the procedural manual and grading guidelines.  That was before the event itself.  Then, after the inevitable failure, their advice was sought by faculty, who wanted to help the cadets understand what to take away from the experience.

If he and Nyota had been a human couple, more could have been achieved with less time.  Considerable intimacy might have been enjoyed during a free hour between lectures, or as part of an evening’s activities.  But Spock had not achieved the necessary tolerance levels.  Restraining his desire to taste her proved highly dissatisfying.  To indulge made him unfit for anything but sleep.  Organising sexual encounters meant finding sufficient, coinciding periods of leisure so that he could recover.

As December continued, and exams added greater complexity to their schedules, the earliest date which met all these requirements was the twenty-fourth.

Inside the hygiene station, Spock saw the extinguished candle on the counter top.  It was a tribute to Nyota’s careful planning for Christmas Eve. Her classes had finished just two hours before his.  From there she went directly to Orientalis Deli on Hubble Boulevard to collect an order she'd placed with their vegan counter.  Then she went to her apartment to pack. Gaila assisted, so that the food, overnight bag and Commander Spock's _ashayam_ would get safely over the back fence.  His security controls now recognised Uhura's voice, and let her into his study. 

By the time he arrived home the coffee table was set, the lighting subdued and a Vo’ektaya interlude by Iso Nith T’Lunnes played at low volume from her PADD on the sofa.  But the scent of cinnamon, coming from a different direction, seemed to open his head and unlock weeks of accumulated desire.  He had proceeded directly to the hygiene station.

And he found Nyota there, undressing by candlelight, only her white cotton briefs left to cover her.  When their eyes met she paused, stepped closer and started to unbutton his coat. 

“I need a shower,” she explained.

A light touch applied to her meld points revealed a very different need.  He leaned close for a kiss but she was rationing them.  He was permitted one when she had removed his coat and scarf, a second after his uniform jacket came off and a third in exchange for his shirt.  He used the underside of the counter unit to catch the heels of his boots and lever them loose, before sending each one flying across the room with a kick.  His hands fought Nyota’s for the privilege of tugging down her panties and he won by tearing apart the side seams.

“Those were new,” she protested.

“I will replace them,” he promised, and stole his fourth kiss.  When he resisted the hand that tried to push him away, Nyota moved it down between his legs.  A jolt of erotic current disconnected him from his senses; he returned to reality to find his spine arched backwards, so that he was staring at the ceiling.  At some point during his absence, he had been freed from the confines of his uniform trousers.

“Now, please,” she said, when they were both naked and standing under hot shower spray.  She wrapped her arms round his neck and let him grab her from the back of her thighs to lift and open her legs, adjust the tilt of her pelvis.  Once their bodies had connected, the rest happened quickly -- a spasm of uncoordinated thrusts driven by their pent up yearning.  They were both catapulted into climax, and left to whimper and pant close to each other’s ears.  He did not try to disengage and she did not relax her grip with arms or legs.  The nails of her left hand were dug deep into his neck.

“Too long,” she whispered at last.   He concurred with a grunt.  Slowly, they began another rhythmic sequence, long intervals of pressing and shifting and muttered endearments, while the water ran into their eyes and mouths.  It was a sweeter tension, like the scent of the candle – Spock kept his awareness of each separate sensation they created in each other. 

Nyota reached another apex ahead of him.  In response to her second orgasm, she pulled his hair and demanded an increase to the tempo of his hips by drumming the new beat against his buttocks with her ankle.  Her urgency accelerated his responses and he succumbed seconds later – his face crashed into the tiled wall behind her and the torpedo fire of his semen forced air from his lungs like a blow to the ribs.  He shouted her name. 

And that was just enough.  They let each other go with sighs of relief.  The edge had been taken off their sexual hunger so they could think about another kind.    

This morning’s shower used much less water.  Spock stepped out of the enclosure to dry himself, and noted that their discarded clothes had been cleared from the floor.  His meditation robes hung from one of the hooks on the hygiene station door.  He put them on and left the sleeping area. 

When he entered his lounge, he saw no leftover food on the coffee table, only empty plates.  The cushions on the sofa preserved an imprint of their brief occupation the previous evening, when Nyota made a spontaneous decision to sit in his lap.  She wore her satin kimono robe, of which she was so fond she sought out and presented him with a similar garment so they were dressed identically.  

Holding her in place had occupied both his arms, or so he managed to convince her.  She had asked him steady her while she leaned forward to fill a plate with a sample of her purchases from the deli: seitan meatballs, two varieties of small tomatoes, dolmades and parcels of spanakopita.  She had rested the edge of the dish against his breastbone, and fed them both while they exchanged accounts of their respective days.   

Quietly, Spock removed the plates and carried them to his kitchen.  He held each one over the organic waste processor and brushed off remnants of thin pastry.  The spanakopita had proved difficult to eat without producing crumbs.  When Nyota had run a finger under his mouth to remove a fragment of filo, she narrowly escaped his attempt to devour her.  She had interpreted his actions as an attempt at humour and laughed.  But it made her less careful. When she took her next bite, from one of the tomatoes, the juice dribbled over her chin and ran down the length of her throat. 

She had motioned with one hand, indicating that she wanted a napkin from the coffee table.  But he had not moved.  He watched that drop of juice continue its journey over her skin until it reached the place where the two halves of her robe crossed.  When it disappeared beneath the cloth, he lifted his gaze and let it plead with hers. 

She smiled and said, “Okay.” 

He had tipped her backwards onto the sofa, careful to pause so she could place the remains of their meal back on the table and he could open the front of her kimono.  Then he meticulously licked her clean.  She massaged his scalp and improvised new patterns of breathing.  He tantalised himself, rolled her left nipple over and over beneath the bridge of his nose until his mouth became so wet it took her whole breast with a slurp. 

And he had welcomed the gradual intoxication – the untying of his mind.  Each contact his mouth made with her skin worked loose another knot of everyday tension, the discipline that drove all his teaching decisions, his precise calculations, the plans and revised plans and every careful movement.  Nyota knew how much of her he could handle, more or less.  When she did urge him to sit up and stand, objects he knew were solid had taken on a fuzzy edged glow.  And he knew the only reason he didn’t walk into the walls of the passage on their way to his bedroom was because she steered him. 

Even the bed had felt softer.  She seemed to pour him out onto the mattress, on his back, and while she untied his robe he spotted the mistletoe overhead.  He made himself laugh trying to articulate the word with a tongue that unexpectedly jammed itself between the consonants. Meanwhile Nyota mimicked the attention he had given her nipples, and stoked his new erection with fingertip caresses. 

If their first session of lovemaking had been rushed and starved, their second was languid and epicurean. Nyota brought the candle from the hygiene station and set it on the bedside table, asked the computer to extinguish the lights.  She shed her robe and smiled when he rolled on his side to adore her body gilded by fire.  She lifted her arms to unfasten her ponytail, and accepted his request to turn a slow pirouette. 

She had a vial of oil concealed in one of the kimono pockets.  Sitting with her hip snug against his, she had warmed the bottle under the candle flame and filled the cupped palm of one hand. Spock was gently coated, smoothed, perfumed.  A whiff of orange untangled his tongue and he started to tell her about his maternal uncle’s parcels.  Completely unnecessary – she knew the story already.  Consequently, it did not matter how often his breath hitched or the rising blood dragged his vowels into moans. 

More oil was needed to reciprocate.  He made her breasts and belly glisten, primed every swell and crease down to her knees and tried to resist his appetite for her skin.  But once he had overwhelmed her, hunger overwhelmed him.  And when he had eaten to a point that put him beyond the capacity for words, glutting himself on her fourth orgasm, he raised his head drunkenly from her _kotic_ and had a moment’s insight.  He had spread her open with both hands, his fingers lined up along the arch of her pelvic bone.  And he realised that if he considered her glans together with the sensitive bulbs of tissue on either side of the clitoris, he was looking at a shape very much like the leaf and bud formation of the mistletoe.  

And suddenly, the traditional Terran association between the plant that decorated his bedroom ceiling and kissing became quite logical. 

The display panel on the kitchen sterilising unit confirmed the start of its dish washing routine, and also wished him a happy Christmas Day. Spock plumped the sofa cushions and set them back in their usual places, before deciding he was ready to join Nyota. At the north wall of the lounge, he switched the entrance control to manual so he could carefully open the soundproofed panel which closed off the study.  Uhura sat facing the glass doors which looked out on the rain soaked garden.  She wore the meditation robes he had given her, and was deep in trance.  He settled on the floor beside her. 

*** 

Nyota opened her eyes.  The katra of T’Shin had been coaxing her to bring herself back to the surface of her mind, wanted her attention to focus on the garden.  It had been dark when she started her meditation.  Now there was dull light, the kind barely adequate to reveal the colour and texture of objects.  And Spock sat beside her. 

She disobeyed her mother by turning to look at him instead.  How perfectly straight he could sit, as if making conscious effort to hold himself when his consciousness was elsewhere.  She loved how fully he occupied the various aspects of himself.  If teaching, he seemed to thrive on questions, particularly from students who confessed to complete confusion or ineptitude.  If meditating or reading or working on a report, he could maintain unbroken concentration for hours. 

And when he gave himself to her, it was with honest carnality and worshipful attention to detail.  It might not happen as often as she wished.  But the wait could be worthwhile, just to see the eyes of a Vulcan fix on the undoing of a single button and watch the pupils dilate as if he had already seen and touched what lay beneath.  And if he was given the chance to touch …. 

She let out a sigh on behalf of all her satisfied skin. 

Before she could ask herself how long he had been there, T’Shin informed her that he entered the room thirty-seven minutes and thirty-eight seconds earlier.  Then she asked her daughter a second time: _study the garden._    

What was there to see?  Spock had tried, whenever he could find time and the weather was dry, to improve the appearance of his plot.  He had planted an azalea in the northeast corner, which should break out in vivid red flowers come spring.  He’d purchased two potted bay trees and placed them on either side of the glass doors.  They had been trying to decide what to do about the well trampled spot on the lawn, the place where feet landed every time someone climbed over the fence.   The ground was starting to break up and become slippery. 

Her eyes shifted to that location.  And there it was.  A neat square of lawn had been cut away and replaced with a stone slab.  And the fence … she could see the cuts across the panels and the dark metal hinges fastened to the wood.  And a holly wreath, to mark the middle of a new gate. 

Four minutes later, when it opened and Gaila stepped through, the Orion saw her roommate and waved.  Then she shouted. 

“Kuwa na Krismasi njema!” 

Cadet Jadillu had been taught the traditional Swahili holiday greeting.  Sadly, her poor teacher never suspected she would use it to wake the whole neighbourhood.  Nyota saw a single crease appear in Spock's forehead.

Uhura tried to make a warning gesture through the glass, but it probably looked like she was waving back.  Concealed by the bay trees, Spock remained invisible to his Orion teaching assistant as she came charging across the lawn.  By the time he was spotted, she was too close.  There wasn't the space to slow down gradually, or slam on her brakes without slipping.  Gaila crashed against the doors.

Nyota just shook her head, stood up and let her roommate inside. 

“Sorry,” the Orion half mouthed, half whispered. 

Spock’s eyes opened.  Nyota touched him lightly on the top of his head, giving him assurance that he could stay where he was, in keeping with Vulcan custom, and let his guests prepare breakfast.


	2. Cultural Differences

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Readers, this chapter is dedicated to Angela, who carefully looks over my words, and whose suggestions had a strong influence on the kind of Christmas Day Spock and Nyota will now spend together.

Trust Vulcans, Gaila thought, to drain all the fun out of Christmas morning.  Spock spent another hour in meditation after she arrived, effectively binding everyone in his apartment to a vow of silence.  Nyota, of course, having become some kind of walking specimen jar for the soul of her Vulcan guardian, had no problem with that.  Gaila wanted to scream.   

It got worse.  Breakfast was served without champagne (even the Academy dining hall provided that much).  Though it was doubtful whether alcohol would have been enough to lift a meal of dried fruit and uji.  And hardly any conversation flavoured the eating time.  Gaila tried, but the two of them were so … contemplative.  And scent free. 

She thought about asking to use the hygiene station, just to walk through their bedroom and see if she could find evidence of a night spent in passion.  But it was like they didn’t know how much she knew, or care how much she had done to bring them together.  They hid from her what they hid from everyone else.  When she was around, they wouldn’t even peck each other on the cheek. 

Once, she resorted to asking.  Nyota, usually open-minded about accommodating cultural differences, could not stretch to this one, tiny request.  Gaila argued that she was already exercising considerable restraint.  On Orion it would have been perfectly acceptable to ask if she could join in. 

But Nyota could not rise above her Terran prejudices.  “On Earth, having an audience makes it something different.” 

Gaila didn’t bother to get the Commander’s views. 

After breakfast, there was a little excitement.  They got to ride in Spock’s dual range, dual assisted convertible motive, purchased from his old Academy roommate.  No better day for a drive, when the streets of San Francisco were empty.  Spock programmed an indirect route which took them along the west coast of the peninsula right down to Lake Merced, so they could enjoy the views.  The return journey went into the heart of the city and parked outside a building that looked very old and grey.  It didn’t have windows, only tall inset strips of coloured glass pieces soldered together, which seemed to be the binding between sections of wall. 

This, Nyota informed her, was a church.  As Gaila had never been inside one before, there were rules to be learned. 

“Talking and consumption of refreshment permitted only in the lobby.  No running anywhere.  None of the objects inside may be picked up; I will show you which may be touched.  Under no circumstances enter the main hall or peek through the doors -- there is a private service in progress.” 

So much for hoping things might improve.  Spock parted company with them in the lobby, turning down a passage to the left of the entrance.  Nyota led her roommate in the other direction.  She opened a pair of doors tall enough to allow Terrans to grow another meter in height and still walk through without ducking.  That gained them entry to an octagonal chamber with grey walls that vaulted up to a peaked glass ceiling. 

Daylight from above and a few unscented candles provided illumination.  Tables were banked against the walls all the way round, and filled with objects Gaila felt she would probably recognise but not be able to put in context.  Nyota took her arm and together they moved closer, began a slow circuit tour. 

Since talking was forbidden, the Orion had to make her best assessment.  There appeared to be a number of discreet displays presented on the tables, set apart by fifteen to twenty centimetres of empty space.  Each display had a focal point, a banner or structure or object which was larger or more decorated than its constituent items.  She had to see several of these before she guessed that the focal point was meant to identify the purpose, or possibly the person for whom the display was intended.  

Nyota paused at every one, long enough to grip the edge of the table.  Some focal pieces were representations of humans, or creatures which had human and animal features combined in the same body.  To all of these her roommate bowed, as if they were sentient and needed to be greeted.  One sculpture, depicting an adult female holding an infant, required additional attention.  Nyota reached out and gently touched the baby’s outstretched right hand.  Gaila gave her roommate a questioning look, received a nod in return, and copied the gesture. 

And then Nyota reached inside her robe (Vulcan garments were big on concealed storage) and pulled out the iridescent blue stone Gaila knew she had brought back from her visit to Spock’s world.  Uhura claimed Lelar had noticed her admiring the seams of natural colour embedded in the rock of Mount Seleya, and given her a piece.  Gaila wasn’t sure she believed the story, but one way or another the mineral was rare and made a perfect keepsake.  

Her roommate set the stone down in front of the sculpted feet of the human female.  She bowed, more deeply than she had done for previous representations, and moved on to the next display. 

Gaila had used up all her self-control by the time they came full circle and faced the giant doors again.  She dragged Nyota into the lobby. 

“Why the hell did you do that?” the Orion demanded.

 “Volume control,” Nyota warned.  But Gaila still had her by the arm, and hauled her outside, all the way back to the motive. 

“I can shout all I want now,” she said, “so hurry up and explain. Why did you leave your piece of vokaya in that room?” 

“It was a gift for Jesus.” 

“Who?” 

“You touched his hand.” 

“I touched a sculpture.  You gave a gift to an inanimate object?” 

Nyota shrugged.  “Yes.” 

“That’s insane.” 

“It’s not insane, it’s just not easy to understand.” 

“I thought you had a Vulcan living inside you now,” Gaila said.  “Does she understand?” 

“Gaila, it’s a custom I grew up with.  I’m not sure how far back it goes, but I know my great-grandparents took gifts to leave at church.  T’shin and I did it as well, every Christmas.  It was her suggestion to give away the stone.” 

“Why?" 

Nyota sighed.  “Because the stone is special.” 

“And you give special things to people who appreciate them.  Not to a piece of, of …,”

“Painted wood,” Nyota helped her. 

“Painted wood,” Gaila concluded.  “If you have to leave a gift, why not choose something you don’t want to keep?” 

“Oh Gaila, this is going to take a lot of time.  Spock is probably waiting for us in the lobby by now.  Did you want some tea?” 

The Orion stamped her foot.  “Tea?  All this insanity and the best you can offer me is tea?” 

But she drank a cup.  The Commander (who spent his hour in the church crypt, a soundproof space which held reproductions of several non-Terran sacred objects, including the kir’shara of Surak) promised they would return to his apartment as soon as they finished and present each other with gifts – something enjoyable at last.   

“Did you find your visit to the chapel interesting?” Spock asked her. 

Nyota interjected.  “I’m trying to help her understand why I left my piece of vokaya in front of the icon.” 

“It’s not logical,” Gaila argued. 

While they were in the lobby, he did not comment.  But during the journey home he said, “I also found the custom puzzling when Nyota first described it to me.  The gesture is symbolic.  It is done to indicate willingness to sacrifice one’s personal desires and attachments in the interest of a greater cause.” 

“More than that,” Nyota added, “it is a reminder to consider what others sacrifice for me, and practice finding a thoughtful way to express gratitude.” 

Honestly, Gaila said to herself.  Would the day ever stop being so damned thoughtful? 

Thankfully, the answer was yes.  Back at Messier 20 Cluster, Spock unlocked the cabinet where he stored his _ka’athyra_ , because it had assumed an additional function and concealed their Christmas presents.  He played two pieces of Vulcan music while Nyota warmed a pot of soup.  They ate that at the breakfast bar with buttered chapatti, and Gaila almost cried with joy when it was time to settle round the coffee table, because she realised more food was going to be served.  Nyota set down a dish filled with pretzels, shortbread and coconut stuffed dates along with three small tumblers that appeared to contain alcohol.  The Orion sniffed hers, just to be sure. 

“Her patience is rewarded,” Uhura said as she sat on the sofa beside Spock.  “Now let’s see if she can identify the taste.” 

“She has significant experience where ethanol based beverages are concerned,” the Commander replied. 

Gaila took a sip and let the liquid roll over and under her tongue before she swallowed.  “Distilled, not stored in wood – that much was instant.  It tastes resinous, as if the principle ingredient comes from a plant which can withstand extremes,” she described.  “And I think there is another flavour, pinching my soft palette, like pepper.” 

Commander Spock raised an eyebrow, and that was as good as amazement.  Nyota went to the cabinet and removed one of the presents; it was swathed in a great deal of turquoise silk but when it was passed to her, the Orion realised that the light fabric was meant to mislead.  Whatever lay under the cloth was weighty, and it sloshed.  Gaila quickly disrobed a tall bottle of golden liquid. 

“Fifteen year old Vulcan kellorica,” she pronounced, just to show that she didn’t need to be able to read the label. 

“A little more of what you've already enjoyed,” Nyota said.  “And don’t forget the wrapping.  You always know what to do with small amounts of fabric.  Happy Christmas from me, Gaila Jadillu.” 

The entire morning’s events were forgiven in an instant.  Both roommates shared a good, suffocating hug. 

Nyota’s gift for Spock also came in luxurious cover – a rectangular bag made from black on black silk brocade with a pattern like overlapping scales.  By contrast, the object inside seemed disappointing. 

“What is it?” Gaila asked.

The Commander set it on the coffee table without looking at Nyota. 

“It’s a carving,” Uhura explained, “of a Terran tropical fish.” 

“Oh,” Gaila said, completely unable to think of a nice thing to say.  “Another piece of painted wood.” 

Then, unexpectedly, she detected a faint, familiar scent, like the crumbled leaves from a climbing dazaak on Vondem during the cold season.  Only one man in the known universe produced that particular fragrance when he was aroused.  The Orion tried to square that with the cheap figurine on the coffee table and could not.  But she thought the timing was perfect. 

“My turn now."  Gaila brought her first present out of the cabinet and handed it to Nyota.  “Happy Christmas.” 

As soon as Uhura got her fingernails under the gift wrap and caught a glimpse of the searing yellow Felladu bag, she gave the Orion a look.  “I’m not trying this on now.” 

“Of course not,” Gaila insisted, as if she never dreamed of asking.  “I just think you need to expand a certain someone’s horizons beyond one bikini.”  She couldn’t be sure whether Commander Spock was paying attention.  He hadn’t moved in his seat, and his eyes seemed to be fixated by something on the carpet near the wall.  His pheromone perfume was fading. 

“Would your gift to Spock, by any chance, be a purchase from the same establishment?” 

“I think he will consider it a service rendered,” Gaila said.  “No Vulcan could afford to sully his or her reputation by walking into a branch of Felladu, even to browse.  Whereas, if an Orion goes shopping there --,” 

“She’s just supporting her home world exports.  But given the private nature of your gift …,” 

Gaila nodded.  “Totally educated about Vulcans and privacy,” she sighed.  “We could just … pretend that one already happened.” 

There was a little silence, after which Nyota said quietly, “I wish there were some other way we could show you how glad we are to have met one particular Orion.” 

The Commander rescued them from the next silence, by emerging from his mysterious torpor to ask, “Have we reached the point in proceedings when I should present gifts?” 

“We have,” Nyota said. 

He reached inside his robes and brought out a white envelope with Starfleet’s logo.  “I apologise for the aesthetics of the wrapping,” he said.  “They were not delivered to me until very late yesterday afternoon.” 

“They?” Nyota asked. 

Gaila took the envelope, opened it, and looked inside.  Then she looked back at Spock, disbelieving. 

“Student Services can have them sewn onto your uniform,” Spock informed her.  And that’s when Nyota grabbed the envelope and checked the contents herself.

“You've made her a lieutenant?” 

“Sub-lieutenant,” Spock corrected.  “As Gaila will likely obtain the required credits for graduation this spring, I submitted a recommendation to have her promoted now to facilitate her eventual assignment for duty.” 

“But she will outrank me.” 

“Ha!” Gaila exclaimed.  “You’ll have to obey my rules now.” 

She meant it as a joke, but Nyota was giving the Commander a look that was not funny. 

“May I suggest,” Spock seemed to know this was a moment to tread carefully, “that we finish the exchange of gifts?” 

Nyota checked the cabinet, but the only thing left inside was the present which could not be mentioned. 

“Do you have another envelope?” she asked.

“I do not,” Spock replied. 

“Then I don’t see --,” 

“Your gift can be found in your PADD messages,” he told her.  And while Uhura was on her way down the passage to fetch that from the bedroom, Spock glanced briefly at the remaining parcel in the cabinet, then at Gaila. 

“I’m supposed to pretend you’ve already opened that,” the Orion said. 

He nodded once, and spoke while he redirected his gaze to the cabinet.  “I will need to have a brief meeting with you in my office tomorrow.  Would eleven hundred hours be too early?” 

“No sir,” she replied. 

Nyota returned to the lounge more slowly than she left.  Her PADD was gripped with both hands.  She stopped when she reached the back of the sofa and just stayed there, staring at the screen. 

“There is an audio file to accompany the text,” Spock said quietly. 

In the end, Gaila had to get up, because Nyota was as motionless as the sculptures inside the chapel.  The Orion activated the correct link on the PADD. 

“Hello Cadet Uhura,” a recorded voice greeted her, “this is Captain Christopher Pike.  I am pleased to tell you that your application to serve aboard the USS Enterprise has been received and is under consideration.” 

Nyota paused the recording.  "I haven’t applied,” she said. 

“Not personally,” Spock allowed. 

“Please clarify.”  Uhura’s tone of voice made Gaila take one step away, just in case. 

“The Captain sought my advice concerning improvements to the Enterprise computers.  During that conversation, he suggested --,” 

“No,” Nyota said, and dropped her PADD on the sofa.  “It will never be said that I got aboard the Enterprise because of you.” 

“Perfectly understandable,” Spock replied. 

“It’s one thing to relax fraternisation rules,” she went on, “though I intend to ask Professor Abdulov to give all my subspace assignments a second evaluation next year.” 

“A prudent decision.” 

“But I will not bypass the normal process for officer commissions.” 

“No,” the Commander replied, “you will not.” 

Silence followed.  Nyota’s eyes were on fire.  Gaila sighed.  “Christmas over already.” 

Spock picked up the PADD and reactivated the sound file. 

“That’s the official part out of the way,” Captain Pike’s voice continued.  “Now, cadet, let’s talk man to man.  Spock tells me you’ll raise hell if I send this, but my advice is to save your energy.  Acceptance of your application means you’re under my command from now until I decide whether or not you qualify.  And I need you ready for your first mission tomorrow morning.” 

The Commander paused the recording again.  He put the tablet back where it had been, picked up his glass instead and sipped his drink. 

“Sub-lieutenant,” he addressed the Orion, “in all our previous conversations, you never mentioned a familiarity with _kellorica_.” 

Thirst mattered.  Gaila needed more alcohol if she was going to have to think of a way to calm this situation.  She went back to her chair and downed her brandy in one swallow. 

“Well,” she said, “it’s true I meant to brief you concerning non-Terran specialities.  _Kellorica_ isn’t one of Vulcan’s biggest exports, but if you can’t get it there is a very similar brandy distilled on Tellar from the fermented leaves of a succulent --,” 

“Fine,” Nyota snapped.  She leaned over the back of the sofa and restarted the sound file herself.  Captain Pike became the centre of attention again. 

“At o-eight hundred hours on 26th December you will report to Ground Dock Nine, bay sixty-four in uniform.  No additional personal possessions are permitted.  If your presence is questioned by dock personnel, you are only authorised to tell them that you are crew for the Alpha Incognito.” 

“Oh, and one more thing,” Captain Pike said after a pause.  “In case your misplaced sense of principle is still telling you to turn this down.  Uhura, frankly, I wouldn’t care if you were sleeping with every Science Officer in our fleet.” 

Gaila saw her roommate’s nostrils flare.  Nyota turned her back on the PADD. 

“So if I give you an opportunity to prove yourself, that’s what I damn well expect you to do.  If you fail, I might take pity on Spock and let you warm his bed on board the Enterprise.  But not much else.” 


	3. Mother and Child

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you readers, for being so patient. This chapter took a bit more research, and ended up a lot longer than I expected. But you've waited and I hope it's a wait that you'll feel has been rewarded.

Well, well, well.  Uhura.  First initial N.  That’s a little more to work with.

She was the last to board the shuttlecraft; held back, presumably, until the male cadets completed medical checks and got into flight suits.  He let her greet Hikaru Sulu with enthusiasm, Leonard McCoy with professional courtesy.  She took the last empty seat at the back, and seemed completely absorbed with fitting her safety harness over her standard issue shoulder packs. 

“Right,” Jim said, “Computer, all crew members are present.  Seal the hatch and transmit mission preamble.” 

The computer also activated more interior lighting and their individual work consoles.

“Roll call for mission Alpha Incognito," the machine voice announced.  "Please answer ‘Present’ when your name is called.  Cadet Kirk, James, acting Captain.”

*** 

Of course, Nyota thought, he’s Captain.  Maybe she would have worried less about Spock using his influence to secure her invitation (maybe) if she’d known Christopher Pike was going to make sure his darling prodigy held the top job on this mission. 

“Cadet Sulu, Hikaru, acting Navigation officer.” 

“Present.” 

“Cadet McCoy, Leonard, acting Medical officer.” 

“Acting under duress, frankly.” 

“The computer does not recognise non-standard responses,” the machine voice said.  “Cadet McCoy, Leonard --,” 

“Present,” McCoy growled. 

“Cadet Uhura, N, acting Communications officer.” 

“Present.” 

“All crew present.  Downloading mission scenario details—please wait.” 

Jim Kirk unclipped his harness and got out of his seat.  He had that look again, a less bleary eyed version of the one he’d given her in The Shipyard Bar, but just as annoying.  He sashayed up the middle aisle, caught the edge of her console and leaned his weight on that hand. 

“So, N,” he said, “what did your parents call their next child?  W?” 

“You’d love me to laugh at that,” she replied, “wouldn’t you?” 

“You mean, ‘wouldn’t you, _sir_ ’.” 

“As soon as you’ve earned my respect, you’ll get it.” 

“Fine,” Jim straightened up.  “So maybe this ‘first initial only’ thing isn’t just a conceit on your part.  Maybe it’s a kind of icebreaker, something to amuse the crew while we’re in flight to our destination.  Is that it?” 

She didn’t reply.                         

“I like a good guessing game,” he said.  “Let’s see, I’ll bet it stands for … Naomi.” 

“No.” 

“Nadia?” 

“Not even warm.” 

“Nichelle?  No, how about a name for the holidays – Noelle!” 

She couldn’t summon up the will to keep answering.  

“What was the name of that girl we met over Thanksgiving, Bones?” 

“The one you met,” McCoy drawled.  “And that was long after my bedtime.” 

“She was from Kenya … Nafula!  Is it Nafula?” 

“No,” Uhura snapped. 

“Nina?  Nola?  Nevada?  I had a girlfriend with that name.” 

“Jim,” the acting medical officer intervened, “I mean _sir_ , the doctor is going to certify you unfit for duty by reason of insanity unless you shut up.” 

“Mission scenario downloaded,” the computer announced, “Ready for transmission on acting Captain’s orders.” 

Jim Kirk snapped back into command mode, turned and strode to the front again.

“Computer proceed,” he said. 

“Cadet Sulu to set course for the coordinates appearing on all consoles and launch shuttle.”

Nyota watched Hikaru raise a curious eyebrow as he carried out his instructions, and she felt the building energy of the engines under her feet. 

“Cadets McCoy and Uhura will commence an inventory of all supplies and movable equipment on board.”  

Work made reality sink in. 

"We’re headed north,” Kirk announced, as Uhura opened storage lockers and saw the vacuum packed survival suits.

“Our destination is a region called Omineca, a mountainous area approximately 280 kilometres inland from the Gulf of Alaska.  Current temperature is minus twenty-one degrees centigrade --,” 

McCoy, standing behind her to check the medical supplies, let out a high pitched whistle. 

“That’s doesn't factor in wind chill, Bones.” 

“At least one of us will feel at home, Iowa boy,” McCoy replied. 

“Snow on the ground averages twenty-four centimetres deep, with predictions of another two centimetres to fall overnight.  Computer, can you give us any more information about the nature of our mission?” 

“Negative,” the computer replied.  “Further information cannot be released until destination coordinates are reached.” 

Nyota counted sylene protective sheets, boots, tool belts, polarised goggles with inbuilt comms link ear protection, lightweight fuel capsules, dehydrated rations, expanding foam insulation canisters.  Clearly, they were going to deal with the elements.  She had drilled in the Climactic Gymnasia, and knew how to use every item.  But she had no idea what minus twenty-one centigrade would actually feel like. 

She was checking a harness that carried its own gear for climbing rock and metal surfaces, when the shuttle lurched and she nearly dropped it on her console. 

“Sulu?” she heard Kirk call out. 

“Compensating, sir.” 

It happened again.

“What was that?”

“Interference with the power grid,” Sulu said.

“Cause?” 

“Not sure.” 

Fifteen minutes later, the computer announced they were nearing destination coordinates.

“Crew prepare for emergency landing.”

And there was another, sudden drop in power that cut the engines dead.  

“Switching to reserves.” Sulu shouted.

Nyota was shunted in multiple directions, straining the straps on her harness.  Turbulence threw her jaw out of line so she bit her tongue.  She groped under her seat to find the lever that would activate her parachute, if needed.  She could see from her console how rapidly they were descending. 

“Prepare to eject on my signal,” Kirk said. 

“Got power,” Sulu countered, “I think I can hold it.” 

In an eternity measured by her console as four point four seconds, she gripped the rim and endured the continued drop, with Kirk shouting out each loss of altitude until Hikaru created enough thrust and they levelled out. 

“Holy mother of God,” she heard McCoy exclaim. 

“Can we make our landing site?” acting Captain asked acting Navigation.

Sulu nodded.  “If reserve power holds.  If not, we’re low enough to withstand impact.  If there’s ice on our hull the snow may give us some glide.” 

The engine did cut again, and they felt the slam of solid earth, followed by a ride of smooth lengths mixed with some rock hammer blows to the fuselage.   Gradually, the ground resistance brought them to a halt.  Then it felt unnatural for everything to be still. 

“Crew,” the computer hailed them, “welcome to mission Alpha Incognito.  For the purposes of this exercise, you must assume you have landed on an unknown Class P planet within the Neutral Zone.   Your starship, the USS Alpha, was disabled while it orbited this world and you were forced to evacuate.  You do not know the reason your vessel was overpowered; you were not aware of any attacker.” 

Kirk, already out of harness, stood up from his chair, folded his arms and frowned. 

“A large portion of the saucer section of Alpha has come to ground approximately three kilometres from this landing site--,”  

A map with coordinate lines appeared on all consoles. 

“Your first task will be to find these remains and establish the extent of the damage.  All subsequent decisions will be made using your own initiative.  Bear in mind that you will be under surveillance throughout.  At the completion of this mission, your performance will be assessed to measure how well you investigated your situation, utilised the available resources and attended to individual duties.” 

“Right,” McCoy said, with little enthusiasm. 

“Sulu,” Kirk asked, “can we run this tank like a hovercraft and drive it to the wreckage?” 

Before Hikaru could answer, the computer interrupted.  “This shuttle will self-destruct in fifteen minutes.” 

“Fine,” Kirk said.  “Sulu, can we?” 

“I think we can.” 

“Jim, this thing’s gonna blow,” McCoy protested. 

“Which do you want,” Kirk demanded, “carry everything on your back for three kilometres through the deep snow, or carry everything a few dozen meters?” 

Nyota could see his point.  “I’ll allocate supplies while we fly.” 

The reserve engines were willing to cooperate, at least, and they got going.

“Fourteen minutes until self-destruct sequence,” the computer announced. 

Uhura gave out survival suits and boots, goggles.  That took a minute.  Sulu and Kirk swapped places at the controls so Hikaru could put on his clothes plus the climbing harness, and help McCoy with his things.  Nyota wrestled her way into her own suit, fitted her goggles underneath its snug hood and tested the four comms links.  She filled her shoulder packs with the sylon sheeting. 

“Eight minutes until self-destruct sequence.” 

Kirk surrendered the controls to Sulu again.  As he tore open his vacuum bag he glanced at Uhura’s attire and said, “You should carry all the fuel capsules. Tie the strap round your waist.” 

“Sir,” she protested, “One piece of flaming debris from this when it explodes--,” 

“Uhura, I’m being evaluated on every decision I make.  Distributing the fuel puts everyone at the same risk.  If I had to lose someone on a desolate, freezing planet, it’s probably best I choose communications.” 

“Right,” she said. 

“Nothing personal,” he told her. 

“Sir.”

Nyota bit her already bitten tongue and belted herself with a dozen flasks of highly flammable liquid. 

“Six minutes to self-destruct sequence.” 

“We’re within four hundred meters of the saucer, Captain,” Sulu said. 

“Get closer.” 

Nyota divided up the rations and foam canisters, put half in Sulu’s pack and half in Kirk’s.  She issued everyone with a fully charged phaser. 

“Alpha saucer one hundred meters away,” Kirk said, “Buckle up everyone.  We’re cutting the engines.” 

“Three minutes to self-destruct sequence.” 

The shuttle hit ground and spun.  Nyota clutched her seat and held on until the craft was stopped by an impact that was final but felt somehow soft. 

“Open bay doors,” Kirk ordered. 

“Bay doors are blocked,” the computer told him.  “Two minutes twenty seconds to self-destruct sequence.” 

“The saucer would have displaced a lot of snow,” Sulu suggested.  “It probably banked up, and that’s what stopped us.” 

“Try manual controls.” 

“They won’t budge.” 

“Roof hatch?” 

That opened fine.

“Everybody out,” Kirk ordered. 

“You expect us to climb?” McCoy said, “I’ve nearly doubled my body weight.” 

“We could eject ourselves and parachute down,” Sulu suggested. 

“Do it,” Kirk said.  “Uhura first.” 

“One minute forty-five seconds to self-destruct sequence.”

That was the last thing Uhura heard.  The force that shot her straight in the air knocked all the breath out of her, and the cold on her face felt like it was removing her skin.  But the sky above was serene, cleansing blue.  Nyota released her chute and it righted her, tipped her seat forward so she could see this alien (to her) landscape. 

It looked like a section of badly made bed: a heavy, white comforter thrown over blue-grey sheets, but with too much haste, leaving puckers and folds where the dark mattress showed through.  The cloud cover was some way down.  They must be on high ground, above bad weather. 

Behind her, she heard the sound of two more ejections.  She knew McCoy's by the string of shouted profanities that carried through the freezing air.  As the ground came closer she had other things on her mind, and decided there was little point trying to land on her feet.  She ploughed the snow with her boots and dug herself a trough that received her chair. 

As she unbuckled her harness, she heard and felt the explosion.  She got up and turned round to see the cloud of smoke rise.  And she saw Hikaru pitch into the snow about five metres to her right.  She took a step into the fresh, white crust at the rim of her trench and watched her leg sink up to the knee.  Then she took another. 

“Sulu,” she activated her comm link, “this is Uhura.  Do you read?” 

“I do,” Sulu voice came through her earpiece.  “You contacted the others?” 

“Not yet.” 

“You finish that.  I’ll find you.” 

She reached McCoy as well.  He must have switched on his link without realising, and was muttering to himself about the madness of it all. 

“Kirk?” she tried.  “Captain Kirk?” 

“He went up over that damn snow bank,” McCoy told her.  “I just hope he got a soft landing.  I’m scanning for life signs.” 

“Uhura to Kirk?” she tried again.   She heard something. 

A weak voice transmitted.  “Uhura …?” 

“Captain?  Are you all right?” 

After a few seconds he said, “Natasha?” 

“Sorry?” 

“Your first name.  Is it Natasha?” 

While she huffed into her microphone, Sulu appeared.  “You don’t want to take him too seriously,” he said. 

“I can see the saucer from where I’m standing,” Kirk said.  “Bones, have you got a reading on me?” 

“Afraid so.” 

“Keep talking so Uhura can track you.  Then find me; I’m looking for a way inside." 

*** 

She should not have given in to a feeling of disappointment.  Their saucer, when they reached it, was quite obviously a model, and not a particularly convincing one.  Scaled down, with join marks where the fuselage had been put together in segments and sprayed with metallic paint, it looked less like a fallen starship and more like one which lacked the necessary ambition. 

It reminded her of a certain Orion, and her reaction the day before to the Madonna and Child.  Just a piece of carved, painted wood.  And no masterpiece – Nyota often wondered whether all the objects in the chapel were chosen for their unassuming appearance and inexpensive materials.  A good imagination was required. 

Now Uhura had to draw heavily on her own.  Kirk found an opening on the starboard rim where they could let themselves down into a service corridor on D deck.  She ignored the missing signs of damage and chaos, the absence of fallen crew.  She overlooked the unfinished walls and doors which were nothing but painted outlines.  She accepted that metal stairs had to replace the turbolift, and that the bridge had benches instead of chairs.  Benches of a predetermined length and width, not difficult to envisage as places to sleep. 

But there was much to do before they could rest.

The instrument panels, at least, were proper simulator consoles, working from emergency power reserves.  They had to assess the available data and download what they needed to the memory in their goggles.  Nyota went directly to her station and asked for a three day climate forecast and distress call links. 

Kirk also asked her to run a structural scan of the area round the saucer, which proved that the secondary hull must have remained attached until the ship hit the planet’s surface.  They found a portion of it, broken off to expose the warp intermix chamber, lying in snow about twenty-five metres further back. 

“How much daylight do we have?” Kirk stood behind her. 

“Two hours, eighteen minutes,” she said. 

“Nearest Starbase?” 

“Twenty three.” 

“Can we hail them?” 

“We can try.  But if Romulans brought down the Alpha, they might pick up our signal.” 

“And ambush any vessel that came to our rescue,” Kirk finished the thought.  “Sulu, McCoy, we need to go foraging.” 

“For what?” the doctor asked.  “We’ve got food.”

“That section of engineering includes the shuttle bay.  Worst case scenario we'll find nothing to salvage, but we need to eliminate it as a possibility.” 

“Aye, sir,” Sulu emptied the contents of his pack. 

“Uhura--,” 

“The structural scan has been extended to a radius of ten kilometres.  I’ve located the plasma transfer conduits.” 

“Good,” Kirk said.  “Keep that going and --,” he checked the setting on his phaser, “—and keep us updated.”

He strode to the turbolift doors, then stopped.  “Oh, and could we get this place warmer, and heat up the rations?  We’ll be pretty cold by the time we get back.” 

“Jim--,” McCoy began. 

Kirk had already started down the stairs.  “Bones,” he called up, “you can complain while we’re walking there, all right?” 

Three pairs of feet hammered down the metal steps, and built up an echo that played on, faintly, while the scan moved through a nineteen degree arc and revealed the location of the navigation deflector and fragments of antimatter containment vessels.   They lay at lower altitude, below the cloud cover. 

The quiet after the echo vanished was almost perfect.  And Nyota held her anger in check, by reasoning that she was likely the best person to stay behind and interrogate the simulators with broader questions.  Were there any detectable vessels in orbit which may have attacked them?  Negative.  Was the trajectory of the Alpha’s descent erratic, suggesting that whatever disabled it did so in stages?  Affirmative. 

Did the planet have any humanoid life signs besides theirs?  She began another scan, stabbing the console hard with her left index finger.

The katra of T’Shin was a small voice that seemed louder in the silence.

 _-He is much like his father-_

Nyota frowned.  “Who?” 

 _-Your mother often complained about Captain George Kirk.  Brilliant man, but like all brilliant men, tending towards arrogance-_

“Was he unkind to her?” 

 _-In her opinion, he tended to overestimate the value of his friends and underestimate the value of anyone else-_

“He was unkind to her,” Uhura stated flatly. 

 _-She became a friend, before the end-_

Nyota wrinkled her nose, checked her new scan.  It had picked up the life signs of Kirk, McCoy and Sulu moving away from the stern of the saucer in the direction of the nearest engineering remains.  About a kilometre beyond that, among rocky outcrops too steep to hold snow, she got traces of DNA, the evidence left by a humanoid that had been present on the surface, but was not there now. 

And roughly twelve kilometres further, where the contour scan showed how the ground descended dramatically into a valley, she spotted something more interesting.  A collection of life signs, close together near a source of running water.  A community.  She asked the computer to calculate the numbers, and identify the species.  She magnified the image, so it filled her whole console. 

A town.  The scan clearly showed the footprints of buildings separated by roads, all of which converged at a point on one bank of the river.  A culture with so much structure on the ground would likely have a complex structure of behaviour and language to match.  This was the challenge for a good communications officer.  T’Shin, she could sense, was also intrigued. 

She would need to justify the journey, work out the logistics.  The computer informed her it could not confirm the species, but instead created a composite image based on DNA from a sample of the individuals in the valley community.  It presented male and female figures.

She asked for magnifications of these, and the console was performing this action when she heard the noise. 

It came from her left, from the other side of the exit doors which led to the arterial corridor.  Not a ping or click or creak -- she could dismiss that as the sound of metal expanding or contracting, and not the rattling of anything caught by an exterior draught.

Nyota put her hand over her phaser holster.  And she cursed herself for assuming, without checking, that she was the only life form inside the saucer.  

“Computer,” she asked quietly, “are these humanoids on the command deck now?” 

“Affirmative.”  

“How many?” 

“Two.” 

Nyota drew her weapon.  She might be outnumbered, but maybe not outgunned.  “Show me their locations.” 

They were together, poised to enter the bridge.  Uhura dropped down and crouched beneath her console, with her bench for cover. 

“Computer,” she said, taking aim, “open the exit doors.” 

It obeyed.  Nyota counted the seconds which passed with nothing in the line of her phaser.  After that, a different noise broke the silence: a light vocalisation, high pitched, like a whimper.  There was a second silence, and then her mysterious guests decided to make their appearance. 

Uhura relaxed her grip on the phaser. 

The first humanoid was female, not tall and not in any position to defend herself.  She held a child against her body, an infant that could not hold up its own head.  The position of the baby meant its carer was looking away from the comms station, and didn’t realise she was observed.  She went forward as far as the captain’s bench, where Kirk had left his shoulder packs.

Then she hitched the baby further up her shoulder so she could hold it with one hand and use the other to tip Kirk's pack on its side.  His rations slid out onto the seat.  The female lifted one of the sealed bags, turned it over and examined the preparation instructions printed on the packet. 

Meanwhile Uhura emerged slowly from hiding.  She was almost standing when the humanoid spotted her.  The female dropped the rations and instinctively covered the infant’s head with her hand.  Then the two women assessed each other.  Nyota noted the v-shaped brow ridge and skin markings that surrounded the visitor’s pointed ears and ran down her neck. 

“ _Ekhes_ ,” whispered the female -- the Romulan word for mercy.  The katra of T’Shin advised caution. 

- _She may be a diversion.  Make sure she has seen your weapon, and be aggressive when you question her.-_  

“Why are you here?” Nyota demanded in Rhiannsu. 

“ _Arhem hna mnhe,_ ” and the infant whimpered again as if to reinforce her plea -– ‘I need food.’ 

“Computer,” Nyota asked in Standard, “are there any similar humanoids on lower decks?” 

“Negative.” 

“Do either of these two conceal any weapon or tracking device?” 

“Negative.” 

As she spoke, the female tried to soothe her infant.  She turned the baby to face Nyota, opened its wrappings and pulled out one of its emaciated arms.

“ _Ekhes,_ ” she begged again.

Uhura dealt with another challenge to her imagination.  The baby’s skin had a silicate sheen, and was clearly a robot.  But that was not the point. 

At the same time, T'Shin had changed her mind.  _–Computer data would suggest this simulation may be testing our discernment of what does or does not constitute a threat.  If we can find no evidence that the female is dangerous, an act of compassion may earn you a better evaluation-_

Nyota concurred.  “She looks like a Romulan madonna.”

When she took a step closer, the humanoid female looked anxious, and turned so her body would shield the baby.  Uhura put her phaser back in its holster.  She pointed at the ration pack which had fallen on the floor. 

“ _Mnhe_ ,” she said, and added a gesture – her pinched fingers inserted into her open mouth.

*** 

By the time the three men returned from their expedition, Nyota had redistributed the rations and put all the captain's belongings back on his bench.  Kirk continued to make guesses about her first name as they ate their meal.  But she felt more at ease with his attempts.  She tried her own diversion, and told him he should call her Nikita, but she could tell he wasn’t buying that.  


	4. Nei'rrh

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Readers, any Romulan names/terms in this chapter are taken from the glossary at Memory Beta, see http://memory-beta.wikia.com/wiki/Romulan_language  
> If you think this chapter is good, just wait for the next one. I'm so excited I've started writing it already!  
> XOXO - VL

“Bones,” Jim argued, “if it looks like a Romulan and talks like a Romulan, it’s a Romulan.”

McCoy and Kirk stood on either side of her station, studying data Uhura had downloaded to their goggles.

“Not that simple,” the acting Medical Officer replied.  “We know the gene which produces pointed ears in Vulcans and Romulans.  In all the DNA profiles the computer took from the valley community, that gene is suspiciously absent.”

“But they’ve all got pointed ears,” Kirk insisted.

“And they’ve all got tattoos.”

“You’re saying the ears are some kind of body art?”

McCoy shrugged.  “I’d need to take a closer look, obviously.”

Jim whipped off his goggles and dropped them on Uhura’s console, then rubbed his eyes.  “So you want me to approve the use of our precious reserve power to transport you down to this ... community.”

“Jim,” the doctor put a hand on Kirk’s shoulder, “being the stubborn ass that you are, you think you and Sulu can get us out of this mess by yourselves.  You just work non-stop and fix up a craft from junk you salvaged in the shuttle bay.”

“We can.”

“Think,” McCoy used the same hand to give him a shake.  “If that was enough to earn us top marks for this mission, why the hell have a doctor and communications officer in your crew?  Why not engineers?  At least you could take turns sleeping.”

Nyota wasn’t sure Kirk was listening.  His eyes were shut.

“And what if something goes wrong?  A storm, an avalanche or God forbid, real Romulans?  What if you don’t get the work done before our food and fuel run out?”

“If you go down there,” Kirk grumbled, “you’ll draw attention to us.”

“Uhura’s visitor has probably done that already, Jim.  Thankfully, our Xenocultural expert was here instead of you, and so we were able to make a good first impression.”

“All right, all right,” Jim turned and walked to the turbolift stairs.  “Get yourselves ready to beam down.  But report every two hours.  If you don’t discover the answer to our prayers by lunchtime, I want you back up here.”

Over the sound of Kirk’s boots clanking down the steps, McCoy asked her, “What’s your theory, then?”

“It’s interesting,” Nyota said, “because these people do have the gene which produces the distinctive brow ridges we associate with Romulans.  Yet it isn’t known why Romulans have this gene, because Vulcan DNA doesn’t carry it.  The people on this world might be one piece of evidence to support the hypothesis of xenobiologist T’lar Nak Lerath, that the first rebels to flee Vulcan in Surak’s time were so warlike they reduced their gene pool in battle, and had to build up their numbers by intermarrying with humanoids who already lived inside the Neutral Zone.  His view was that Vulcans and Romulans were not closely related, or at least, not any longer.”

The doctor removed his goggles.  “Funny.  I don’t recall that theory being brought to my attention when I did my xenobiology degree.”

“Ah,” Nyota began.

The katra of T’Shin allowed itself the satisfaction of reaching a new audience through her adopted daughter.

“Lerath’s work was not always given the recognition it deserved.”

***

They chose coordinates which put them about a kilometer south of the valley community, among tall conifers they could use for cover.  When they materialised on lower ground, Nyota experienced another lapse of imagination.  A crow brayed from a tree branch overhead, and Uhura thought she heard the faint sound of bells.  It dislocated her; for a moment she shifted out of the simulation reality and thought about the humans, probably Canadian Starfleet personnel, who were about to present themselves as aliens.  She wondered whether they enjoyed what they did, and whether they lived in this location all year round.

Maybe because he was weighed down by the undeniable reality of his heavy med kit, McCoy remained in Alpha Incognito mode.

“Phasers on stun?” he asked.

“On stun,” she confirmed.

But stunned was how they both felt, when they came out of the woods.  As the trees thinned, and they had a clear view of the road into town, they were surprised to see a sleigh coming down from the foothills.  The magnificent vehicle, painted glossy red with gold banding and pulled by a pair of reindeer, came to a halt as they approached.  It was the reason Uhura heard bells; the reindeers' harness was fitted with dozens of them.

A male humanoid occupied the driving seat.  He resembled the female Uhura met the previous day: he had the same brow ridge and dark features, the same tattoos decorating his neck.  But he was costumed like a stereotype. Like the Terran concept of Santa’s elf, he wore a fitted green jerkin belted at the waist, red leggings and shoes with extended, curled up toes.  His pointed ears stuck out over the brim of a ridiculous conical hat with another bell at the top.

And he addressed them in Standard.

“Merry Christmas!” he called out.  “Are you here to visit Santa’s grotto?”

For a moment Nyota wondered whether there were two Starfleet simulations in progress, and they had accidentally beamed down into the wrong one.  McCoy was shaking his head.

“Thank God Jim didn’t come with us.”

“Okay,” Uhura said softly, “I think I know what this might be.”

Then she replied to the elf, “Merry Christmas to you.  Yes, we would like to visit.”

“I can take you into town,” the elf pointed at the high backed upholstered seat behind him.

“How kind,” Nyota replied, “thank you.”

Once she and the doctor had climbed aboard, and the driver faced forward again, McCoy gave her a significant look.  But he waited until the reindeer set off, and the sleigh bells prevented them being overheard. 

“You want to fill me in?” he asked.

“I suspect this is an exercise in ethnographic observation,” she said.  “The setting is deliberately made to seem familiar, to test whether the cadet can remain aware of his or her own cultural expectations and guard against taking for granted anything they haven’t actually verified.”

“For example?”

“Well, we mustn’t assume our driver is an elf, even though he reminds us of one.  Just because he wished us Merry Christmas doesn’t mean we should expect to see or hear anything else that reminds us of Christmas as we understand it.”

“Gotcha.”

The sleigh glided over the last of the hills before making a descent into the town.  The buildings were set back from the road, all single storey, and as they got closer Nyota could see the brown material that made the walls and roofs looked very much like candy decorated gingerbread.

“Makes me hungry,” McCoy said.

“It couldn’t be edible,” Uhura told him.  Thought she had to admit the effect was more convincing than their Alpha saucer.

Every house had a Christmas tree in the front yard, and every tree had wrapped presents piled up round the trunk.  They passed a few residents, who stopped to wave and smile.  They were dressed like elves or angels or shepherds.  Nyota saw one child wearing a snowman romper suit.  As they carried on towards the centre of town, she was surprised not to see more.

When it reached the riverbank, the sleigh turned and drove along a boulevard with the current running alongside them.  The waterfront architecture tried to make an even more festive impression.  The buildings were taller and broader, with gabled roofs, broad bay windows and covered porches all decorated with lacy patterns of sugar paste.  Icicle lights coiled round candy cane lampposts.  The Christmas trees were indoors here, sparkling alongside displays of plush toys and wicker hampers, fruitcakes and model train sets, bottles of champagne and chocolate boxes in the windows.

But not many people, inside or out.  The computer count had estimated a community over two hundred thousand strong; Nyota knew there must be a reason why they were not better represented on the ground.  And where were the children?

At last the sleigh slowed down and came to a halt before a sumptuous cedar chalet.  Its peaked roof reached higher than any of the other boulevard houses and was topped with a turret which was topped by a gold wind vane in the shape of a star.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” their driver announced, “you have reached your destination.”

Uhura and McCoy climbed out onto the snowy sidewalk.  Nyota started towards the front of the sleigh so she could thank the elf, but he slapped the reindeers’ backs with the reins and they bolted, left the curb with a shower of white powder in their wake.

“Was it something we said,” the doctor asked, “or didn’t say?”

Nyota shook her head.  “We’re still learning,” she said.  “Might as well go inside.”

The doorbell played “Deck the Halls”.  When the front door opened, another Romulan looking female greeted them, wearing a floor length red dirndl and embroidered white apron.  Her frilly housemaid’s cap might have been put on in a hurry; it covered her left pointed ear but not her right.

“Visitors,” she said, “how lovely.  I’ll take you to Santa's reception room.”

She led them directly up a broad staircase which all but filled the entrance hall.  The first floor landing had a picture window, six pointed like a snowflake.  It was wider than the three of them standing shoulder to shoulder.  When they reached the top of the first flight and Nyota looked through the glass she saw more than she expected to see.

The chalet was so wide and so deep that there was room in its centre for an open air courtyard -- a cloister.

“Quickly,” the maid tried to steer them away, but not quickly enough.  They turned left and followed the female along a carpeted hallway.  During the journey Nyota had time to consider what she had glimpsed through that window.

The courtyard had been another world, or maybe a world within a world.  On all the enclosing walls, the timber looked charred.  There had been no decoration.  The bleak slab paving had been fully occupied -- she could not be sure how many but she guessed there might have been two hundred people standing there.  All wore black, without exception.  She remembered one particular male, in an unzipped jacket and flared trousers which gathered at his steel capped boots.  She saw how the tattoo patterns on his neck continued onto his shoulder and chest, and wondered where they ended.

No one in that crowd had seemed cheerful. 

It made Nyota more uneasy than she had been.  The pretty gingerbread houses, the lights and Christmas cheer lost their appeal, began to seem like a front to conceal a reality that was already a simulation.

“Here we are,” the housemaid trilled, as she took out keys from the pocket in her apron.  She used them to unlock the door at the end of the corridor.

“Santa likes to keep his visits short," she advised.  "If you could limit yourself to five minutes, please, it will allow him to see as many people as possible.”

She opened the door and nodded her head to indicate they should enter without her.  Once they were inside, the door was closed behind them.

“Okay,” McCoy said, “where’s Santa?”

There wasn’t anyone else in the room.  There was a high backed chair near a fireplace, facing them, and a small table beside that which held a covered candy dish.  The Christmas tree in the corner might have had space behind it for an elf to hide, but not St. Nicholas.

“You starting to feel a little worried?” the doctor asked.

“Maybe,” Nyota replied.  Then she spotted something on top of the mantelpiece.  “We’re being watched.”

She pointed at the surveillance patch, which their hosts had not bothered to disguise.

“That’s just the Academy faculty, right?” McCoy asked hopefully.  “Evaluating our progress?”

“Maybe,” she said again.  “But what if it’s not?  Who would want to watch us in this room, and what are they hoping to find out?”

She went up closer.  She could hear T’Shin’s thoughts mixing up with her own, and tried to concentrate on her guardian’s ideas.

 _-Speak Rhiannsu-_  T’Shin suggested.  But before Nyota could say anything, a voice spoke to her in Standard, broadcasting from the patch.

“Welcome, Terrans!  You must excuse my absence – what is Christmas without Santa Claus, after all?”

Nyota looked back at McCoy.  He didn’t look like a man who felt welcome.

“Tell me,” Santa’s transmission asked, “what should I call you both?”

 _-Speak Rhiannsu-_ T’Shin was insistent now.  _–Tell them your Romulan name-_

She was harking back to Nyota’s childhood.  Because T’Shin ran a multilingual home: Monday was always Arabic day, Tuesday High Vulcan, Wednesday Spanish, Thursday Romulan.  To immerse little Nyota in these different spoken worlds, T’Shin gave her human charge a name to use during those days which suited the chosen language.  On Thursdays, therefore, Nyota became Nei'rrh.

Uhura straightened her back.  One could not speak Rhiannsu with less than military posture.

“ _I am calling myself Nei’rrh,”_ she glared at the surveillance patch, as if to stare it down.  “ _A doctor accompanies me.”_

She must have achieved something.  Santa remained quiet for a good couple of minutes.  McCoy drew up beside her.

“What the hell did you--,”

“Trust me,” she said.  There was no reason why he should.

“Well now,” Santa responded at last, “it’s not every day you hear that.  What an interesting pair you are.  Very, very … interesting.”

“Lord have mercy,” McCoy muttered.

“It’s been lovely to meet you.  Now, if you don’t mind, I have a long line of people waiting to get inside the grotto.  You know how busy I get this time of year.  I’ve left you each a treat inside the candy dish – make sure you don’t forget it.”

They both turned at the same time and regarded the bowl on the table, concealing its contents beneath an innocent looking cut glass lid.  McCoy took his tricorder off its belt and ran a scan.  Then he ran it again.

“Believe it or not,” he said, “What’s inside that dish is nothing more dangerous than confectionery.”

“Should we take it?”

“Is this an Ethnography quiz?  I’m just a beginner, but I say yes, we should.  We’ve cooperated so far, even though we have no idea what it all means.”

She agreed.  They opened the dish, took out two cellophane wrapped parcels of sweets, and stowed them in their shoulder packs.  Then they turned to walk out the room.  But before they could make the door they were stopped by the energy field of a transporter beam, bringing down four bodies.

“Oh, here we go,” McCoy said cynically.

Four humanoids materialised to block their way out.  Nyota recognised two of them – one was the young man she glimpsed through the picture window.  He seemed to have brought a couple of body doubles.  The other was the female she met on the bridge of the Alpha.

 _“Nei’rrh,”_ the young man addressed her but looked directly at the acting Medical officer, “ _your doctor needs to be skilled.  Come with us.”_

McCoy did not ask her what was said, but seemed prepared to fall in step as they left the room flanked by this alien guard.  They were led back to the picture window, down the grand staircase and behind it, where a concealed exit opened and they stepped outside into that cheerless courtyard.

It was still full of humanoids who looked like Romulans, a gothic assembly with black clothing and bleak expressions.

The young man projected his voice to make himself heard across the cloister.  “ _We have a doctor to save the child.”_

McCoy still did not ask her to translate, but she did.  He adjusted his grip on the med kit.  “Still cooperating,” he said.

The crowd parted, and the young man led them deep into the black sea of bodies.  Then all of a sudden there was an island of open pavement, and Nyota saw the robot baby girl in the middle of that space, lying naked on top of her swaddling clothes.

 _“You would let her freeze?”_ Nyota asked her alien escort.

_“It is merciful.  The child is dying.  The cold numbs pain, and lets it die in sleep.”_

McCoy already had his tricorder aimed at the baby’s shivering form.  The quiet in the courtyard was horrible.

“I know what this is,” he said.

“You do?”  Nyota was amazed.  McCoy knelt, laid his med kit on the ground and opened the case.

“ _Yem wonil_ – hope that pronunciation is right,” Leonard inserted an empty hypospray chamber into the kit replicator.

Nyota frowned at the strange combination of Vulcan words, which literally meant 'a thin meal'.  T’Shin explained while McCoy filled the hypospray chamber with a yellow serum.

_-A water borne bacterial infection eliminated on Vulcan in the fifteenth century.  It inhibited nutrient absorption, and was usually fatal in young children, because their immune systems could not combat the microbe before they died of starvation-_

McCoy removed the chamber, checked the calibration, and injected the infant at the back of its neck.

“Uhura,” he said, “tell our hosts to get this little tyke wrapped up, warmed up and fed immediately.” 

***

After that, things happened very fast.  They were hustled across the pavement to the back section of the chalet, where the humanoids had their transporter facility.  They were beamed to an unknown location, with the young man who had escorted them.  It seemed to be a chamber cut from solid rock.

 _“We are inside the mountain from which you descended,”_ the young male told her.  _“Here we have an infirmary.”_

The missing children were here, three wards full of them.  Uhura got their escort to confirm that all of them were suffering the same symptoms as the baby girl.  Then McCoy started demanding information.

“Are the patients assigned to ward by age, or how long they’ve been ill?  Has the drinking water been analysed?  Where do you produce your drugs here?”

Uhura translated his questions as they kept moving.  They were taken to a room which appeared to be a station to coordinate staff and supplies.  The young man took them to a central counter, asked her to ask McCoy to produce another dose of his medication.

 _“Attention!”_ he called to the attendants who manned the counter, while Leonard did what he was told. _“We have an antidote.  Replication is needed now.”_

Their replicator units looked simple, but proved adequate.  An entire bank of them were given samples of McCoy’s serum to analyse and copy.  Staff lined up at each machine to accept a dose and run to deliver it back to the wards.  When it was all over, and every child had been treated, Uhura checked her goggles.  It had been two hours and thirty six minutes since they beamed down from the Alpha.

“We’re late with our report to the Captain,” she told McCoy.

“Time well spent,” he said.  “We’ve made some friends, I think.”

Their escort, who had taken himself on an inspection tour of the wards, returned. 

 _“Nei’rrh,”_ he addressed Uhura, “ _No previous visitor has given us more than they take.  Our gratitude is immeasurable.”_

 _“Your gratitude is an honour,”_ she replied.

_“Perhaps we can reciprocate.”_

_“Perhaps,”_ she agreed.  _“Our vessel is disabled.  We lack the means to return to our world.”_

_“You wish to leave before the Romulans detect your presence in the Neutral Zone.”_

Uhura smiled.  _“Precisely.”_

_“Nei’rrh, allow the doctor to return to your vessel.  I will petition to obtain an audience with our Rh’iov, who resides in this mountain.  You may present your requests.”_

“What’s happening?” McCoy asked, when the young man turned and walked away again.

“You’re being beamed back to the Alpha,” Uhura said.  “And I am being taken to see their leader.”

“I’m glad it’s that way round.  Will you be all right?”

Nyota shrugged.  “They want to return our kindness.  Let’s see what they can offer.”

***

They beamed McCoy directly to the command deck of the Alpha saucer.  The humanoid female who had begged Nyota for food was there to set up the coordinates, as perhaps she had done before she paid her visit to the bridge.  For some time after the doctor left, Uhura had nothing to do but wait near the transporter pad for the humanoid male to return. 

 _“Nei’rrh, I go to find him,”_ the female said.

She was some time as well.  When they both returned, the male apologised more than once.  He seemed awkward.

 _“Rh’iov Aehallh will see you,”_ he said, _“but makes one additional request.”_

Uhura checked her posture again, just in case.  _“Explain.”_

Now the young man seemed uncomfortable.  _“You will present as one of us.”_

Nyota frowned.

 _“It is an old custom,”_ he explained, _“rarely invoked.  Alterations are impermanent.  The Infirmary Surgeon is ready to proceed.”_   


	5. Rh'iov Aehallh

The strangest thoughts came to Uhura while she was in transformation, helped by what she could see.

The operating theatre had multiple surveillance patches; she could not move her head to locate them, but the images were continually projected and refreshed on the wall in front of her.  Once her brows and forehead had been modified, and the face presented to her on the wall seemed fixed in perpetual hostility, it felt as though Nyota Uhura had stepped out of her body and left it to someone else.

What would she be like, had she been born Romulan?

Her whole concept of the universe, she acknowledged, would be reversed.  Nyota’s friends would be the enemies of Nei’rrh, and some enemies would be friends.  Nei’rrh would be convinced of the virtues of Romulan ways, fierce in her desire to defend its Empire.  The United Federation of Planets would seem, at best, a nuisance, or at worst, a threat which must be eliminated at all costs.

Nei’rrh would be strong.  What alternative would there be?  She would make tough decisions the way others made minor choices, and then make more decisions to deal with the consequences.  As Nyota watched the surgeon reshape her ears, she knew that she would never want to trade places with her Romulan self, but it might not hurt to assume certain qualities.

Changing her face took little time.  Adding the tattoos was another matter.  A series of curved blade shapes had to be hand painted and overpainted with a fixative resin.  The surgeon started at her jawline on the right side, covered her neck and draped the designs over the swell of one shoulder, then carried on down half of her back as far as the base of her spine.

And a question occurred to her.  If the transformation was turning out to be this extensive, would she ever be expected to show that much uncovered skin?

And why?

Perhaps that made her wary, when it came time to deal with her hair.

 _“It will not be cut,”_ she nearly snarled the words, which said something for the effect of cosmetic change.

The surgeon did not argue.  Instead, he fed the strands of her ponytail into a decorative headpiece that drew the hair straight up like an antenna on the left side behind one ear.  He fixed it in place with metal clamps.

Her clothing, by contrast, reassured her.  The humanoid female brought in a heavy black coat dress with a throat clutching collar and a hem which swept the floor, until Nyota was given boots with heels that gave her extra height.  A combat vest went over the coat.  It broadened and squared her shoulders and lent her adding fierceness with two rows of spiked studs along the epaulettes and chain fastenings down the front of the bodice.

The male humanoid came to inspect the finished presentation.

 _“It is accepted,”_ he told the surgeon.

Nyota was taken back to the infirmary transporter.  As she stood on the platform, watching the humanoid female set her destination coordinates, she steeled herself for the next encounter.  She said the name of the community’s leader to herself.

- _Aehallh-_

It was a term with several meanings: it could signify a ghost, or a figure from a nightmare, or the illusion one might hold concerning a real person.  Romulans attached great importance to the selection of names. If these people were the same, she would need to consider in what way the Rh’iov lived up to this appellation.

She was told her new location would be at the top of the mountain.  She materialised inside a rock walled chamber, smaller than she imagined a leader’s accommodation might be.  Furnishing was minimal.  Directly ahead stood a black table with two unforgivingly upright chairs. Along the right hand wall a stone alcove was overlaid with an adequate (not luxurious) black mattress to provide a bed.  That was all.

On her left there was daylight.  That wall was made from insulated glass, giving the room a floor to ceiling view of the landscape across the summit.  From where she stood, Nyota could see the secondary hull of the USS Alpha.

_“Aefvadh, Nei’rrh.”_

She was welcomed by a soft voice.  It came from the back of the chamber, where the Rh’iov stood before an extensive array of controls and displays.  His back was turned.  His apparel matched what she now considered standard dress for males in this community – a short, fitted jacket worn with baggy black trousers and sturdy boots.  The only distinguishing accessory appeared to be two silver piercings she could see on the tips of his ears, which elongated and sharpened the points.

It was when he turned … no, when he began to turn, that she knew.

That economy of movement – if the angle of rotation was greater than ninety degrees, then Spock’s lower body would initiate the arc.  His waist, shoulders and neck would remain still until he had almost completed the motion.  Humans would turn their upper body sooner, because quick eye contact mattered more.  Spock would consider this unneeded expenditure of energy, since his legs were already doing the necessary work to reposition the rest of himself.

And cosmetic modifications, however well done, had not disguised his beautiful eyes or lips.

He approached her.  He had been coached, she figured, and told not to clasp his hands behind his back or fold his arms across his chest, because such gestures were Vulcan.  He kept his arms at his sides and fisted his hands.  It changed the way he walked; each step led from the shoulder as well as the foot.  And he must have been ordered to leave the front of his jacket open.  He revealed a glimpse of extra skin each time his torso shifted.  She caught sight of the tattoo on his stomach.

Nyota knew she had seconds to pull herself together.  Her imagination dislocated completely from the instant she recognised him.  Half of it remained faithfully in Alpha Incognito.  The other half was inventing its own, private scenario, goaded by the sight of his left lilac crest, the curve painted black and rising out from the waistband of his trousers.  It wanted to remove his jacket and examine his transformation inch by inch, in a different kind of role play.

As he drew near, she believed he was affected by her the same way.  His pupils were as dark and hungry as black holes.  Had they been lasers, the way they scanned her from head to foot and back again, she would have been sliced to ribbons.  If Gaila were in the room, she might have dropped hints about needing fresh air.

Then he stopped.  He left an ambiguous distance between them.  It was too close for a meeting of strangers, which this was supposed to be, but further than they would normally stand to share a kiss.

 _“The assistance received here today was valuable,”_ he said in Rhiannsu. 

The word he chose for ‘valuable’ implied a commercial assessment, and his intonation was flat, the spoken equivalent of a poker face.  Uhura had to reconsider her first assessment.  Maybe she was seeing what her own hormones wanted her to see.  Spock was playing the Rh’iov Aehallh, a leader who wanted to see how much he would be required to pay for what his people had been given.  She could save him some face by discounting, but she should still ask for as much as she could.

 _“The honour of this meeting demands some offsetting,"_ she responded.   _"I will provide this_ _.”_

And as soon as that sentence left her mouth she cursed her confused imagination.  She ought to have used the plural pronoun, to make it clear she represented her crew.  Saying ‘I’ suggested the debt reduction involved some personal transaction between herself and Aehallh.  And that implication was not lost on Spock.  He took a step closer.

So her initial assessment had not been wishful thinking.

Then, for a moment, she considered whether Christopher Pike might have designed this part of Alpha Incognito with their relationship in mind.  After all, the Captain had effectively forced his science officer to give up the company of his girlfriend for most of the holiday break.  Maybe this private meeting was a little payback, cleverly worked into the simulation.  Spock’s eyes practically confirmed it – they shifted from her face only once, to glance in the direction of his alcove bed.  Then they fixed on her again.

_-No-_

The katra of T’Shin apologised for interrupting her thoughts.  She admitted she did not know any more about Captain Pike than Nyota did, but she asked her daughter to consider another possibility.

_-It is not unusual for sexual favours to be asked for or given during diplomatic exchanges.  As the senior xenocultural and xenolinguistic expert on board your ship, you may find yourself in negotiations like these.  You may be the only member of your crew who understands what is being requested, and the implications of the choices made.  I believe Starfleet wishes to see the parameters you would set yourself, as an officer and an individual, in such circumstances.  Perhaps Spock wishes this also-_

And Nyota knew T’Shin was right.  Pike was putting the best possible temptation close enough to touch, in a context where giving in might not be discovered, and might seem perfectly excusable, even kind.  He was daring her to show him how she would handle that.

 _“James Kirk commands me,”_ she clarified her previous statement.  _“He will decide a deduction.”_

Nothing could be read in Rh’iov Aehallh’s expression, because that did not change.  But he turned away from her.  He walked over to his glass wall and stopped there, taking in the view.

 _“What Kirk must deduct is already here,”_ Aehallh pointed at the Alpha wreakage.

_“Explain.”_

_“When he leaves the Neutral Zone, this remains.  The Empire will demand an explanation.”_

Nyota tried to picture the scene, but needed clarification.  _“Are you allies of the Romulans?”_

The Rh’iov finally betrayed an emotion.  His voice was tight with barely constrained anger as he left the viewing wall and returned to his impressive array of controls at the back of the room. 

“ _Romulans owe a debt of alliance to this world -- Khati – because they used the planet as a base for operations against the Federation during the last war.  But they give nothing in return.  They ignored my distress calls.  James Kirk did not.”_

A distress call.  Nyota made a mental note to check Alpha’s logs as soon as she could, find out what was received and when.

 _“Kirk promised to transport medical personnel,”_ Aehallh went on, “ _but not to land.”_

Uhura explained.  _“In orbit round Khati, our ship was disabled.”_

Rh’iov made a sound without opening his mouth, the kind that signified scepticism in a dozen other humanoid cultures.

“ _There were extensive preparations for Kirk’s arrival.  All families with infected children left the larger towns and came to this remote place.  Empire maps do not show a community here.”_

Nyota frowned.  “ _And yet the town is …,”_ she took some time to select the most complimentary description for the collection of Christmas clichés, _“… distinctive.”_

Rh’iov touched one of his displays, then let his hand fall away.

 _"It will be destroyed,”_ he said.

 _“Why?”_ she asked.

_“It was Khati’s secret.  The four most powerful governments on this planet agreed to prepare this venue for negotiations with the Federation.”_

_“What do they want from the Federation?”_

_“An adjustment to the Neutral Zone.  To remove Khati from Romulan space.”_

_“Surely the Empire will not agree.”_

_“The Empire --,”_ Aehallh turned and shouted at her, _“-- expects to rule every beat of every heart under its control!”_

She had never heard Spock raise his voice.  Her mouth opened slightly in surprise. 

 _“But this is not possible,”_ he added, still angry but making an effort to resume his former composure.  He paced the length of the alcove wall without speaking.

Nyota began to feel a greater sympathy for this simulated civilisation".

 _"Khati will attempt negotiation regardless of the Romulans,”_ she said, to show she understood.

_“Yes.”_

The Rh’iov continued walking, passing her once again and stopping for a second time in front of the view outside.  He glanced back at his visitor.

 _"Is it clear now,”_ he asked, tipping his head in the direction of the Alpha, _“how this wreckage reduces our debt to your Kirk?”_

Uhura nodded.  She decided it would no longer be an inappropriate gesture if she went to stand beside him in front of the glass wall.

“ _T_ _he Romulans will investigate our crash landing,"_  she said.  " _A_ _nd suspect your loyalty.  They could decide to patrol this sector more often, which would restrict the opportunities Khati will have to make new contact arrangements.  We have delayed your progress.  This cost is significant.”_

 _“Nevertheless,”_ Aehallh said, “ _I will assist James Kirk.  Engineer Bruchon prepares himself to transport to your vessel, and you will introduce him.  He has authority to requisition a range of supplies.”_

_“Then we will owe Khati a debt.”_

_“Perhaps you can enable an offsetting.”_ The Rh’iov turned to her.  His eyes were full and dark again.

Nyota swallowed, and was grateful the high collar on her coat was disguising this.  If anything, Spock was more tempting now than when she first arrived.  He played his part so well.

“ _Present your request,”_ she replied.

_“We ask James Kirk to arrange a Federation visit as soon as Khati has prepared a new venue.”_

She felt a moment of relief.  Her test might well be over soon.  _“How will he know the right time?”_ she asked.

_“You will transmit another distress call.”_

The shock of what Aehallh meant took several seconds to sink in.

_"You ask me to remain here?”_

_“The advantages are numerous,”_ the Rh’iov explained.  _“You will advise on the new venue construction.  You will reassure the Federation of Khati’s intentions.  You will observe the Empire’s investigation and testify on our behalf.”_

_“Will the Romulans suspect my true identity?”_

Aehallh reached out and ran a finger over the pointed helix of her left ear.  Nyota stiffened her jaw; it was the only way not to smile in response to his caress, or the expression on his face.  His psi defences were set high, so she could read nothing from his touch, yet she knew he was no longer acting.  T’Shin agreed.  Spock was fascinated by her impermanent alterations.

 _“Your Rhiannsu is fluent,”_ his voice was quiet and gravelled, “ _and you present well, Nei’rrh.  Very well.”_

***

She was beamed back to the infirmary transporter.  The female humanoid was waiting there with Nyota’s survival suit, to help her change.  Uhura took the goggles first and hailed Kirk over the comms link.  She told him she had good news.  When she mentioned bringing a guest, he told her he wanted to see this person before he let them do anything.  She would need to wait twenty minutes while he walked from the shuttle deck to the saucer.

Engineer Bruchon wandered in ten minutes later.  The female humanoid, when she saw him, let out a huff of breath and spent the rest of her time there staring at the floor.  He managed to distract Nyota too, even though she was busy viewing files through her goggles.  If there had been auditions for the character parts in Alpha Incognito, she did not know how Bruchon managed to get his.  He whistled as he walked through the room.  He stepped up onto the transporter platform and strolled back and forth along the perimeter, scratching the edges of his forehead prosthetics and the points on his ears.

She wondered what Kirk and Sulu would make of him.

The female humanoid left the room briefly, perhaps to regain composure.

“Thank god,” Bruchon expressed his relief in Standard, “pompous bitch.”

“I’m sorry?”  Nyota flipped open her goggles.

“Not you,” he said, “you seem all right.  She’s muzzed because her brother usually has this part.  She thinks it’s a demotion because he ended up driving your sleigh.”

“Right.”

Uhura wasn’t sure whether this was another test, if he was trying to confuse her imagination again.

“So, what did you think of our little Christmasville down there?”

What should she say?  “Look,” she tried, “I really don’t think --,”

“Oh, I know.  Everybody worries they’ll lose marks if they stop playing Alpha Incognito and just talk to the real me.  Ben, by the way, Ben Song.  Well, you get marks for worrying, I think.  If you like, I can ask you in Rhiannsu.  _Nei’rrh, give your assessment of our negotiation venue.”_

_“A difficult request.  I would prefer if you told me why Khati attempted this presentation of particular Terran customs.”_

_“We hoped the Federation would note our efforts, which we carefully researched, to present familiar and unthreatening surroundings in this harsh terrain.  And we hoped it would cause them to view us favourably.”_

Nyota nodded.  Then she switched back to Standard.

“Have you done this so many times you can’t work up the interest to try anymore?”

Ben shrugged.

“Guilty.  Sometimes I think about leaving here, doing something more exciting.  Obviously, I’ve considered Starfleet.  But I’m not that kind of person.  Don’t get me wrong – outer space doesn’t scare me.”

“But you’d make a terrible soldier.”

“Thank you,” Ben said pointedly.  “Were you a career counsellor once?”

“Just observing,” she said.  “You don’t like too many restrictions on your freedom.  You wouldn’t last long at the Academy.”

“Argh, ears!” he said, and grabbed both his extensions.  “Don’t yours itch?”

“A little.”

“Think your group will let me pull them off, you know, at least while I’m --,”

“No,” Uhura cut him off.  “Your unauthorised absence from this simulation ends the moment we beam out of here.”  She drew her phaser and pointed it at him.  “Come out of character after that and I’ll have your unconscious body sent back to Rh’iov Aehallh, with an explanatory note pinned to your jacket.”

Nyota hoped the bluff would work.  She didn’t particularly dislike their new assisting engineer, but if she was going to work out what to do about the Rh’iov herself she could do without distractions.

Ben's face suggested he would cooperate, for now. 


	6. Intense Engagement

“So,” Jim Kirk dropped himself on the bench beside her, like her workstation was a piano on which they were about to play a duet.

“This guy named Rio--,”

“Rh’iov is his title,” Uhura corrected him.  “It means commander.”

“Is he not very good looking?”

How was she supposed to answer that?

“Jim,” McCoy interjected, from where he stood near Navigation, “you know, not everyone is like you.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning physical appearance isn’t the first, last and only criterion considered before you agree to an amorous advance.  Hell, you pretty much agree before the advance.”

Uhura tried to change the subject.

“I have confirmed the receipt of a distress signal from Khati, which I can trace to the summit of this mountain, probably from Rh’iov Aehallh’s chamber.  Captain Kirk replied--,”

“Did you translate for me?”

“Yes.”

“Bet he made up his mind when he heard your voice.”

She ignored that remark. 

“You agreed to send Doctor McCoy along with two junior medical officers as required, and to share the formula for our antidote.”

“So when did the Alpha get in trouble?” McCoy asked.

“You had just beamed down,” Uhura said.  “The captain assumed we were under attack and ordered the transporter crew to bring you back.”

The doctor gave a sardonic snort.  “He knows how much I love emergency evacuations.”

“Seriously, Uhura,” Kirk said, “I think you should take a leaf from your roommate’s book.”

She stopped the download she had just initiated and gave him a look that dared him to take that line of thinking any further.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Gaila once told me--,”

“The same Gaila who doesn’t speak to you now?”

“We’ll work through that.  She told me Orions don’t view all sex the same way.  They can do it with the person they love, and then later they can do it, you know, to pay a stranger for a business deal.  And it’s no problem.”

“Jim,” Leonard interrupted again.

“Just being frank,” Kirk defended himself.  “But doesn’t that kind of approach simplify decisions like these?  Rio isn’t asking to marry her.  He just wants compensation for his trouble.  And to be fair, she looks even hotter as a Romulan.” 

“Why don’t you just order me to go back to him?” Uhura asked.

“Because I want it to be your choice.  I want you to do it for the sake of the crew, for Starfleet, for the Federation--,”

McCoy folded his arms across his chest.  “Oh, for God’s sake.”  

“Bones, you’re my closest friend.  I expect you to help me here.  Since Uhura beamed back here yesterday, we’ve had five transmissions from the Khati infirmary, asking me to return her as soon as possible.  Now consider the engineer Rio _gave_ us.  Thanks to him, and the supplies he was allowed to provide, we are two hours away from test launching our escape vessel.  What would you do?”

Uhura and Kirk watched McCoy as he rolled his eyes to the ceiling, and slowly licked his top teeth behind his closed lips.  “Tricky,” the doctor said at last.

“Now you see it from my perspective."

Kirk got up from her bench, presumably to give himself more room to gesticulate.  “And I know what you’re both thinking,” he pointed at them one at a time, “you think I should hold out, put Uhura on the rebuilt shuttle and make the test launch our only launch.  But don’t you see?  That gives me no backup plan.  If the shuttle fails, if Rio gets mad and decides to blast us out of the sky, if we encounter whatever brought down our ship, then what?”

McCoy looked like he was sucking a lemon.  “We’d all be stuck here, assuming we survive.  And we’d fail Alpha Incognito.”

“I rest my case.”

Jim started walking towards the turbolift.  “I gotta go. I’ll let the two of you reach a verdict.”

It wasn’t easy to concentrate after that.  Nyota restarted the download of all the ship’s data in packets to Sulu’s comms link, so he could transfer it to the shuttle computers.  At the same time she was trying to listen to the episodes of interference which happened around the time the Alpha approached Khati and its power supplies failed.  She’d done some reading in preparation for Spock’s subspace class, but what she knew didn’t seem to help her get any useful information from the noise coming through her earpiece.

When she glanced up, McCoy was giving her a sad dog look.

“I’ve made up my mind,” she told him.  “I mean, it’s no different to putting myself in physical danger to protect the crew.  I’d do that.”

“Mmmhmm,” the doctor said.  “Well, that’s damned chivalrous of you.  But if you were putting yourself in physical danger, you wouldn’t go in unarmed if you could help it, would you?”

Nyota looked puzzled, shook her head.

“I don’t see what that’s got to do with my situation.”

McCoy started a slow stroll from Navigation to the stairs.  “Drop by sick bay before you go,” he said.

***

The Khati female was waiting for her when she beamed back to the infirmary.  Nyota was given a new change of clothes, and her hair was tidied.  She successfully concealed the doctor’s compact, with all its compartments, in the deep pocket of the black coat dress.  Then she allowed her molecules to be pulled apart and reassembled on the stone floor of Rh’iov Aehllh’s chamber.  She noted that the coordinates had altered slightly, and put her closer to the alcove bed.

_“Nei’rrh.”_

Closer to him as well.  They faced each other again. 

What was different today?  Not the dilation of his pupils, and their hungry fixation on her, but how sharp the contrast of that blackness appeared within his face.  Spock was normally pale, but she would swear he was a few shades lighter this morning.  Had he not slept?

 _“Aehallh,”_ she addressed him, and was reminded of one of the name’s meanings: a ghost.  The man standing before her had a ghostly aspect, a haunted look.

Spock could just about manage small talk, if he were required to make it.  She suspected the Rh’iov was never required.  So she asked the katra of T’Shin for advice.

_-Raise your left hand until it is level with your shoulder, and your open palm faces him-_

As she followed her mother’s instructions, Spock’s eyes opened wider.  He said nothing.  He lifted his own right hand, making his palm a mirror image of hers and hovering close.  The thin slice of air between the two skin surfaces seemed agitated by a stirring.

 _-Your face betrays your inexperience-_ T’Shin warned her.

Nyota relaxed the muscles in her forehead, and asked for understanding.

_-Vulcans and Romulans commence mating rituals this way-_

When Spock closed the distance between their hands, she could feel how he trembled.  What travelled through their connection was guilt.

She sent back concern and confusion, and whispered to him in Vulcan.  _“What troubles you?”_

He sent her his memory of her arrival the day before.  The Rh’iov had means, through his personal array of controls on the wall behind him, to access the infirmary surveillance.  He had, therefore, observed every part of Nyota’s cosmetic transformation.  And as he did, he felt an increasing lust for the woman she became.

 _“I wanted Nei’rrh,”_ he confessed.

Now the guilt made sense.  He believed this was a failing, a betrayal of their bond.

 _“Nei’rrh is here,”_ she said simply.

But that did not reassure him.  T’Shin had to intervene, and use the connection to communicate with them both.

_-Your expressions of intimacy to this point have been human.  And being human, Nyota would have no reason to consider them incomplete.  But you have not spent enough time alone to fully explore each other’s desires.  This simulation has revealed a need, one Spock will have had no opportunity to perceive before now-_

The explanation left Spock grateful, but still unsure.

_-Within a strong bond, Vulcans will occasionally want a more intense engagement with their partner-_

That word -- intense -- made a difference.  Through the skin of their hands, the memory current changed direction.  She shared with Spock her impressions of Nei'rrh and Aehallh, their alter egos.  It was merely a sample of thoughts which had gone through her mind the previous day and occurred to her since. There was so much to say. 

But also much to conceal, for now.  Spock, she could tell, had psi energy backed up and needing considerable effort to contain.  Nyota smiled at him.  With her forehead prosthetic in place, she hoped it gave her a look both sensual and sinister.  Then she disconnected their hands.  Reaching into the pocket of her dress, she extracted Doctor McCoy's compact.  She flipped open its lid, and showed the Rh’iov what was inside.  She spoke Rhiannsu.

“ _The Terran confectionary given to us yesterday contains cinnamaldehyde._ _We understand the compound suppresses inhibitory responses in certain humanoid species, to enhance erotic stimulation.  May I feed you?”_

She observed, pleased, how his normal colouring had returned.  He drew in a breath and presented himself more fully, confidently, as commander of the community on Khati.

_“Proceed.”_

He watched her select the smallest candy, a searing red tablet of glazed, compressed sugar, and pinch it between her index and middle finger.  Before he could taste it, she held it under his nose and let the scent have its effect.  Spock made a sound she had never heard before, a rattle like a dying man’s last breath.

T’Shin reassured her.  _–There is nothing to fear-_

She told her mother a Romulan female would be beyond fear at the worst of times.  She inserted her fingers between Spock’s parted lips, and felt the rough surface of his tongue.  And she stepped closer.

 _“Nei’rrh IS here.”_   

His mouth filled with saliva, and he flooded the psi link with explicit fantasies of the things he and her Romulan persona might do.  She noted the details while she rolled the tablet over the side of his tongue, onto the soft palette underneath.  His teeth clamped her knuckles, and when she tried to retrieve her hand his rattle morphed into a growl.

Taking a cue from his rampant imagination, she dropped the compact back in her pocket and then used that free hand to pull back the body panel of his open jacket.  It exposed his tattoos, painted in sympathy with existing musculature.  Nyota couldn’t growl like her partner, but she gave her best impression.  She rammed her head into his chest and bit hard on his nipple.

Spock roared with satisfaction.  And her fingers were set free.

Uhura felt a little guilty, as he grabbed her by the waist, hoisted her in the air and folded her body over his shoulder.  From this new position, she could reach down to knead his ass and would have done, if they were truly seducing each other.  He was already gnawing her backside through the fabric of her coat dress.  It didn’t make her feel better to reason with herself, arguing that if he expected sex, then he must also expect to be incapacitated.  The two things still went together, though she knew he was looking forward to the time when the taste of her wouldn’t knock him out.

Doctor McCoy told her the sedative would act quickly.  The quicker the better; she didn’t enjoy deceiving him.

He carried her to the table, which she wasn't expecting.  He sat her on the narrow end, a little clumsily.  Was that passionate abandon or something else?  He pushed her backwards and when she was flat across the top he braced himself by gripping the table on either side of her and pressed his face into her combat vest.  The rattle in his chest went with the rattle of her chain fastenings as he bit down on one and shook his head, trying to work it loose.

Nyota pulled his ears.  That was a cover, so he could think she was with him when what she wanted to do was read him.  She sensed that he sensed the mistiming of his own reactions, a moment when he saw double.  He had opened one of her vest fastenings and was working on a second when his hands slipped off the table and he landed heavily on her chest.

_“Aehallh?”_

She asked T’Shin to help her initiate a full mind meld, so she could explain.

But there wasn’t time.  His drugged consciousness registered odd words, not full thoughts.  In his imagination he was still energetically tearing open her clothes.  So she just repeated _Nei’rrh loves you_ over and over until he slipped away into stupor.

She worried he would fall off the table if she tried to lift him.  So she opened the last fastenings on her combat vest, unzipped the front of the dress and pulled her arms from the sleeves.  Then she crawled backwards using her elbows, shifted her legs out from under him and left her garments behind.  Left with nothing but her underwear, she fished in the dress pocket for the compact, turned it upside down and activated the comms link.

Transmission came through.  “McCoy here.  You okay?”

“Fine,” she turned to the glass wall, but falling snow obliterated any view of the Alpha.  “What’s happening?”

“Jim told me to pack up and get myself to shuttle bay in thirty minutes.  Everything’s ready.”

Along the back wall of Rh’iov Aehallh’s apartment, some part of his control array made a noise.  Nyota had an idea.

“Give me twenty,” she said.  “When I contact you again, lock on my link and beam me back.”

“You don’t waste time,” the doctor remarked.

“I’ll need a spare survival suit.”

Twenty minutes later, she said aloud, “Gaila, when I get back, I will owe you another debt for all the hacking tricks you taught me.” 

Thanks to her roommate, she easily foiled the security settings on the control array.  And she found all the communications it had issued during the day of their arrival.  In addition to the distress call, there were a number of encrypted messages to a channel she did not recognise.  They coincided, she was sure, with the incidents of subspace interference she noted on the bridge.  She dictated the frequency of the interference into the compact’s memory.

Before she signalled the doctor again, she returned to the table.  The coat dress made a good sledge; it allowed her to drag Spock forward until his whole body was off the floor, and safely turn him onto his side.  Difficult now, with his face slack and cupid lips slightly parted, to consider him an enemy.  But the encrypted messages from the Rh'iov's console suggested this possibility.

Gently, she pushed her index finger into his mouth and scratched a nail back and forth against the inside of his cheek.     


	7. The First Thing He Decides

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Readers, I apologise for being so late with this chapter. A combination of flu virus and the demands of work, university and holiday preparations messed up my schedule. I am already working on Chapter 8, so you should not have to wait two weeks for the next episode.

“Altitude is two hundred forty-five kilometres,” Sulu announced tersely.

They were late.  It added to the edgy atmosphere between them, strapped to their seats inside the cramped shuttle.  Tension had built up through a series of unfortunate events, which started from the moment Uhura and McCoy beamed themselves into the Alpha shuttle bay.

Jim Kirk took one look at her and asked the doctor, “What went wrong?”

“You mean what went right,” Leonard replied.  “Our communications officer suspected the Rh’iov might not be as friendly as he seems.  Now she’s proved it.”

“Meaning?”

McCoy held up his tricorder, with DNA analysis from the skin cells Nyota brought back under her fingernail.

“Meaning we will have an angry _Romulan_ on our hands, once he gets over the effects of a sleeping tablet.”

“How long?”

“Three hours, I reckon.”

“Shit.”

Kirk kicked a scrap of polycarbon so it flew across the floor, out through the open bay doors and landed in the snow.

“I thought we were ready,” Nyota said.

Jim messed his hair absently with one hand.

“The test launch was fine; we can fly.  But the undercarriage isn’t holding well under stress.  The bottom could literally fall out on us in space.”

“Can’t we reinforce it?”

“Sure,” Kirk put a false cheer in his voice.  “With present manpower we can turn that round in maybe three … three and a half hours.”

“You’ve got two extra hands now,” McCoy patted his shoulder.  “Point us in the right direction.”

Nyota didn’t need anyone to point.  She ran ahead and arrived first at the nose of their salvaged shuttle.  Without pausing, she ducked and charged down the steps into the service trench that ran underneath the length of the vessel.

Halfway to the bottom, she spotted Sulu.  He was down, flat on his back at the far end of the channel.  His legs were splayed like he’d been knocked off his feet.  She couldn’t see more, because engineer Bruchon’s broad back concealed the rest.  The Khati man was on his knees, straddling his victim, hunched forward like he was about to snap Hikaru’s neck with his bare hands.

Nyota drew her phaser, took aim and fired a stun beam at the middle of his black jacket.

“Ben!”

Sulu’s bare arms flew up to catch Bruchon’s shoulders as the body toppled sideways.  Uhura started running towards the two men, but slowed down as she got closer.  Hikaru was fine.  He had been separated from the top half of his survival suit, but he wasn’t injured.  He held onto Bruchon tightly until Kirk and McCoy arrived in the trench.

The doctor politely asked Uhura if she’d mind standing aside.

While Mccoy knelt and opened his med kit, Sulu cleared his throat and said, "Sorry Captain.  We, uh,... I can see how this wouldn't look very good.  It was just a little … bonus.  You know, because we were running ahead of schedule.”

“Yeah, well,” Jim drawled, “thanks to little Miss Trigger Happy, that’s no longer the case.”

“Wait,” Nyota used her phaser to point.  “Hikaru, you and … Ben ...?”

Ben received a hypospray of adrenalin. He blinked and shook his head while Hikaru rubbed his back.

“I know what you’re thinking, Uhura," Sulu admitted. "Now I’m the cheat.”

“God’s sake man,” McCoy told him, “anybody would be a better match for you than Borozan.”

“Thanks,” Ben/Bruchon said, with some sarcasm.

Nyota noticed his ear points were missing.  After that, she didn’t know which was worse: having to apologise to Hikaru as if she had been the one acting unprofessionally in a Starfleet simulation, or having to be polite to Ben/Engineer Bruchon while he fetched her a soldering gun and showed her how to use it.  No, it wasn’t either of those.  The worst thing was being separated from the Alpha’s computer files, which she should be checking before the shuttle took off.  She needed the answer to one more question: what exactly had caused their starship to lose power? 

They finished the structural reinforcements with twenty minutes to spare.  Their next problem was Ben.  He wanted to come for the ride.

“No,” Kirk was firm.

“What?”  Ben protested.  “I just want to enjoy the results of my effort, for a change.”

“No,” Uhura backed her acting captain.  “It’s out of character.”

“How do you know?!” Ben railed on her.  “If the Rh’iov is just pretending to be your friend, if he is as frightening as you think he might be --,”

“ _If you want my respect, speak like a Khati,”_ she snarled in Rhiannsu.

Bruchon bared his teeth and gave back as good as he got.

_"Then imagine_ _my life under his rule.  Imagine a ruler who would deliberately infect children and use them as bait to lure a Federation vessel into the Neutral Zone.  Would you try to leave, if you were in my place?”_

Nyota tried to swallow this shocking new truth.

“ _Romulans choose their names for a reason, Nei’rrh.  Aehallh is no different.  He is a monster, a nightmare and a master of deception.  If you send me back to him, he will kill me.  I will have been contaminated by contact with the enemy.”_

She could not think of a reply.  The engineer turned to his new romantic interest.

“Hikaru?”

Sulu was clearly uncomfortable.  “Ben, please don’t put me in that position.”

“Jim,” McCoy said at last, “this is your fault.”

“Mine?” Kirk asked, “How?”

“You relaxed the rules.  You let this guy take off his ears, treat us like friends, treat some of us like more than friends.  You let him come out of character.  You can’t go back on that now.”

Kirk huffed.  He was still doing that, after he ordered them all to get on board.  He paused once to set their coordinates.  He resumed while Sulu started the engines, turned the craft round and flew it out into the open sky.

Everyone ignored him.  They fixed their attention on each kilometre of altitude they managed to gain without anything going wrong.

When they reached one thousand kilometres, Nyota felt safe enough to interrogate the computer.  She transferred the sound files she recorded from McCoy’s compact, and asked the computer if any signals had come from the Alpha with a frequency which matched the intervals she noticed on the Rh’iov’s communication records.

After a few seconds, it responded.  No signals had issued from Alpha communication consoles which matched the whole interval pattern.  It could, however, find other signals which matched significant portions.  When the computer suggested it run another analysis of these matches, she agreed.

When the work was sixty-seven percent complete, and they had reached sixteen hundred and ten kilometres, the power cut.  Uhura was thrown forward; her forehead prosthetic saved her from a bruise when she was knocked against her console.

“Switching to auxiliary!” Sulu shouted.

But main power came back online before he finished.  For the next few seconds, nobody dared do anything but watch the acting Navigation officer and feel the reinforced floor beneath their feet.

“Back to sixteen hundred kilometres.  Sixteen hundred ten … sixteen hundred twenty …,”

The next time power cut, Sulu was ready and switched seamlessly to auxiliary.  Then auxiliary failed.

“What in God’s name--,” McCoy said.

Jim Kirk was all over his controls, shouting at the computer to run an emergency diagnostic on both engines.  By the time his sentence finished, and the computer told him it had run that diagnostic already, they had dropped twenty-three kilometres, like a dead weight. 

“What about the plasma conduits?” he demanded.

The shuttle pitched and tipped.  Uhura tried to check her console while using it for support.  She noticed something on the display she had seen on the Alpha readings – the same subspace interference.

“Negative,” the computer replied to Kirk, “diagnostics on the plasma conduits show no anomalies.”

“Captain--,” she tried to interrupt.

“Main power is back online!” Sulu cried out.

Except it didn’t seem to be.  They continued to fall – the altitude reading on Nyota’s console dropped below eight hundred kilometres. 

“I can’t get what I need!” Hikaru shouted in frustration.

“Can you combine it with auxiliary?” Jim asked.

Sulu tried.  But the engines seemed possessed by some trickster spirit who kept disabling one power source, then the other, then switching back to the first.  A ghost in the machine. 

Uhura glanced behind her, at engineer Bruchon who sat on the floor, harnessed to the supply lockers.  Their eyes met briefly.  He looked grim.  Was he thinking what she was thinking, about this ghost, this _aehallh_ , and what might be the real cause of their nightmare descent?

They could not gain height.  The best Sulu could manage was to keep them from falling too quickly.  They were less than three hundred kilometres from the surface of Khati.

“Sulu,” Kirk said, “I’ll get our bearings.  If we can’t go up, we need to get back to the Alpha.”

Hikaru was still focused on keeping up with the trickster as it continued to disrupt their systems.

“Aye sir,” he replied without moving.

“Crew prepare for emergency landing,” Kirk ordered.

“What about Bruchon?” the doctor asked.  “If we have to eject, he hasn’t got a chute.”

Jim turned round just long enough to give the Khati male an ugly stare.  Then he went back to checking his console.

“He’ll have to take his chances.”

“You can’t be serious,” McCoy said.

“For all we know, he caused this.”

“Sir--,” Hikaru protested.

“Sulu, your opinion is compromised.  If you want to save him, find a way to hit the ground nicely.”

“Jim--,”

“Bones,” Jim spun round and grabbed the doctor’s arm, “are you my friend or aren’t you?”

“One hundred sixty seven kilometres,” Nyota announced the altitude, since no one else seemed to be checking.

“What kind of question is that?”  McCoy snapped.

“One hundred sixty kilometres.”

Kirk didn’t elaborate.  He released his grip, waved that hand dismissively and twisted his body round so he could see his display.  He made some adjustments.

“Sulu, can you get any more power?”

Hikaru’s hands had never stopped moving over his console.  “I haven’t found a way, captain.  I can’t get consistent responses from any of the engines.”

“Destination coordinates are locked in.  If I take main power, and you keep auxiliary, let’s see if we can react faster together and get more control.”

There was no more discussion while the acting Captain and acting Navigation worked to pare down the intervals between engine failures, and reduce speed.  Nyota took a gamble and asked the computer to complete the analysis it had started when they were over one thousand kilometres higher.  But she kept one hand on the ejection lever under her seat, just in case.

And she considered what might await them, once the shuttle was back on the surface of Khati.  If the Rh’iov never intended to let them leave, then how long would they stay alive even if they did get down safely?

 _“Bruchon,”_ she turned and spoke to Ben in Rhiannsu, _“If you lie to me now, there is no chance you or Hikaru might live.  So be truthful -- is the Rh’iov Aehallh our only enemy on this world?”_

 _“He is,”_ the Khati man answered.

The computer announced that it had the results of her analysis.  When she turned to look at them she swore under her breath.  There were twenty-seven signals which matched the interval pattern she had recorded by at least eighty-seven percent.  She scanned the list a couple of times, looking for something they had in common. 

It didn’t take long to spot.  All of them were handheld devices: comms, PADDs, tricorders, engineering output readers.

 _“What will you do?”_ Bruchon asked her.

McCoy’s compact was zipped inside her shoulder pack.  She took it out and checked the middle compartment, the secret one, to see if the other weapon the doctor had designed for her was still inside.  She checked the altitude reading on her console: ninety-eight kilometres.

“Captain,” she said, as she snapped the compact shut.  “Permission to be transported to the surface ahead of the shuttle.”

Kirk didn’t move.  “What’s your justification?”

She swallowed her pride.

“You were right.  I should have stayed with the Rh’iov.  I believe he is disrupting our systems somehow, and that might be because I left.”

“Or it might be because you drugged him,” Jim said.

“Point taken.  In either case, the only way you could make another escape attempt is if I return to his chamber, where he has his control systems.”

“Permission granted.”

“But he will kill you,” engineer Bruchon said in Standard.

Nyota had unfastened her safety harness, and peeled off her comms hood and goggles.  She opened the zippers on her survival suit as far as they would all go.

“I am gambling," she said, "on the possibility that killing me will be the _second_ thing he decides to do.”

She stripped down to her underwear, with McCoy and Ben looking on in amazement.  Thankfully, Kirk had to program her destination coordinates while keeping the shuttle flying.  He could not take his eyes off his controls.

“Ready on your signal, Uhura,” he said.  She walked to the back of the shuttle, where there was a single transporter pad.  Carefully, she opened the compact and took out the false fingernail, varnished to match the polish she was already wearing.  She activated the adhesive backing and fitted it neatly over her right index finger.  She stretched out that hand to examine her work.

“Can’t tell it’s there,” McCoy assured her.

She smiled at him.  Then she closed the compact, and pushed it down the back of her panties.

“Ready, sir.”


	8. Compensation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Famine is followed by a feast -- two chapters in less than a week! But this one pretty much wrote itself, and I'm sure you'll understand why.

Either Kirk had been that distracted when he set her coordinates, or he was trying to be funny.  He beamed Nyota onto the black table top in Rh’iov Aehallh’s chamber, so she stood on the coat dress she left behind during her last visit.

Or maybe the acting Captain just wanted to make sure she occupied the only tactical high ground.

When the Romulan commander turned away from his controls to see who had just materialised inside his room, Nei’rrh towered over him.  And as he moved towards her, Nyota wondered where in Spock’s mind there lived emotions as black as his eyes.  They caught her gaze and held it so hard she could not blink.

_“Have you come to beg for mercy, Nei’rrh?”_

The katra of T’Shin, which normally felt light inside her, seemed to wrap itself around her bones and harden like an exoskeleton, a protective armour.

_-Answer threat with threat.  Fire where he is weak.-_

The voice of her Vulcan guardian had also become several shades darker.  Nyota could not say that she felt T’Shin’s anger; anger suddenly became a timid word.  So had rage.  Weak, puny Terran words could not get a grip on the fearsome darkness she could sense within that old soul.  But from the depths of Uhura’s brain, at the stem which developed during the primal years of human history, there was an echo.  Nyota decided to see what deadly waves she and her mother might make together.

Nei’rrh sneered.

 _"I have the means to kill myself immediately, as do all the crew,”_ she replied.  “ _Mercy does not interest us.”_

Aehallh, who had been advancing on her slowly, paused.

 _-You have hit your target-_ T’Shin said.  _–Fire again-_

_“I came for what you would beg from me.”_

Beneath his open jacket, the Rh’iov’s chest rose and fell more quickly.  He scanned the length of her body with unmistakable desire, but when his eyes returned to hers Nei’rrh saw the threat was still there.

 _“If I take you,”_ his voice plummeted to its lowest register, _“I will leave you with nothing to offer anyone else.”_

Nei’rrh responded by undoing the front fastening of her bra, never taking her eyes off Aehallh.  She watched him swallow.

“ _I will devour your breasts,”_ he hissed.

She slipped each strap off her shoulder and let them fall to her elbow.  Then she shook herself, so gravity could take over, and leave another item of clothing on the table.

 _“Then consider my name,”_ she warned him.  _“Nei’rrh is an animal, and one who is armed with her own venom.  I can attack your very blood, if you hurt me.  You will burn alive.”_

Aehallh seemed to weigh up his risk.

Then he reached for the lapels of his jacket and shrugged the garment off his back.  It slid to the floor.  Rather than come closer, he shifted to one side, as if his plan were to get round the table and catch her from behind.  But Nei’rrh moved in step with him.  They turned three hundred and sixty degrees this way, slowly, as if she were the sun at the centre of his system, and he the planet drawn into orbit by force of attraction.

His _lok_ was rigid by the time they finished, pointed at her, challenging the generous cut of his trousers.

 _“If I take you,”_ Nei’rrh said, pointing back, _“you will enter a place you can never leave.”_  

The tattoos along his pectorals were distorted by every breath he took.  And violence was no longer the strongest idea expressed through his eyes.

 _“Beg me,”_ she demanded, _“or I will die now and leave you alone.”_

He took one, faltering step backwards.  And she watched, intrigued, as the Rh’iov battled for control of his need for her.  He tried to turn away.  He started to walk back to his controls, but his feet began to drag and his knees lock.  His own body seemed to be turning against him.  He changed course, stumbled slightly as he laboured his way across the floor and sat down heavily on his bed.

 _“I beg,”_ he said at last.

She climbed down from the table, but only after he groaned, fell back and began to twist restlessly on the mattress.  She came closer, though not close enough to be in range of his legs, which kicked out as if he wanted to lose his boots.

She crouched down, out of his sight.

 _“Nei’rrh!”_ His voice was strangled.

She crawled along the floor to the left side of the bed, reached behind her to retrieve McCoy’s compact from her underwear.  She set it down, and made a careful note of its position.  Then she removed the last of her clothing, and stood up.

 _“Nei’rrh is here,”_ she said.  She paraded herself in front of him, taking down her elaborate hair fastenings one at a time and throwing each one so it struck the alcove wall behind Aehallh’s head.  The Romulan made the same, unearthly rattling noises she had marvelled at during her previous visit.  His right hand clawed the mattress until it tore through to the stuffing.

Nei’rrh shook out her hair casually, and took time to glance round the room as if there might be something else she would prefer to do.  When she turned her gaze back to the Rh’iov, she felt as if T’Shin had infected her eyes with a Romulan’s look of violent blackness.

 _“Remove what little protects you,”_ she snarled, “ _and prepare to die.”_

Aehallh wrestled with his trousers, pulled the fabric in opposite directions until the seams gave way. He arched his back and let her take the torn remnants, drag the fabric down his legs as far as his knees.  His _lok_ had filled with so much blood it was blue.

She made him re-position his arms with both palms spread open and facing her on either side of his head.  Then she obeyed the promptings of her mother’s katra and crawled over his body.  Her knees and elbows would leave bruises, she was certain.  But every time her bones ground into him, he tipped back his head and moaned her name.  Twice he forgot himself, and called her Nyota.

When her face was directly above his, she raised her left hand in Vulcan salute.  He returned the gesture with his right and growled as her fingertips connected with his.

After that her eyes burst into flames. 

It was not an accurate description.  She could not make one.  She wondered if humans had ever felt like this, in some primitive existence, and perhaps forgotten.  But that theory did not last the time it took to form it.  It would not be possible to forget this level of desire, that rushed at her and out of her like a flash fire over dry ground.  Her whole brain burned.  There was shouting she could not locate – the sound of both of them screaming for each other as if this were the last time for touching or speaking before the universe ended.

And she was touched, in all places at once.  Her breasts throbbed.  Her vagina stretched and swallowed a healthy erection, felt it piston back and forth within her.  A coiled spring of orgasm wound itself tighter and tighter at the head of her glans, pulling her whole body into its energy vortex and when it burst she was nothing but clitoris.  The spasms went on and on and on.  

Several minutes passed.  Or at least, that’s what she had to assume.

When she could see again, it was clear she had never moved.  She was not breathing hard or sweating.  Aehallh stared up at her with a dreamy, sated expression.  And yet, when she disconnected their hands and lifted herself up onto her knees, there was no evidence their bodies had done anything.  His _lok_ remained standing in taut anticipation of contact, and the skin was dry.  She felt completely out of her depth.

T’Shin praised her.

_-You have done well-_

She returned a clear thought message.  “I had nothing to do with what just happened.  I could not have.”

The Rh’iov shifted underneath her.

 _"Nei’rrh?”_ His expression was cautious.  _“I have not hurt you.”_

 _“No,”_ she replied, with what she hoped would sound like nonchalance.  _“The experience was satisfying.”_

_“Will you leave it unfinished?”_

Nei’rrh set her jaw tight.  _“Beg me.”_

Aehallh smiled.  _“I beg.”_

She came down on him as hard as she could, as if she meant to grind him through the mattress into the stone underneath.  It caused a strange reaction in her, a fluttery, liquid climax that passed like a dizzy spell through her legs and arms and made her fall forward onto the Romulan’s chest.  The impact seemed to be just what he needed to switch his agonised pleas for more into a roar of release.  They were almost nose to nose after that, enjoying the dying pulses of his ejaculation.

She had never had time to notice just how quiet it was inside this chamber.  Quiet as a tomb.  Even the wind outside could only make a soft sound by blowing snow against the insulated glass.  She let Aehallh lift one of his hands and stroke the point of her left ear.  She did the same to his.  It gave her the chance to inspect the false fingernail, still in place, still tipped with its barely perceivable, deadly point.

 _“Will you and your crew be honoured,”_ the Rh’iov asked, _“for dying in this manner?”_

 _“We will be honoured,”_ she let her finger glide softly down to his earlobe.  _“Will you?”_

He had mimicked the movement of her finger precisely.  They both stopped, and spent a few moments studying each other’s eyes.

 _“I did not hurt you,”_ Aehallh repeated.

 _“Yet you speak about my death.”_ She rubbed the skin where his jawbone curved.  He did the same to her.

_“As you speak about mine.”_

McCoy had provided her with a fatal dose of dicydripan, a classified formula manufactured only at Starbase 23.  It was a poison which did not disable immediately.  It started to work on nerves at the extremities, numbing the fingers and feet.  Then it moved towards the centre of the body, gradually causing paralysis in the arms and legs, the abdominal organs.  Depending on the nature of the victim, it could reach the heart and lungs in less than two minutes.

Given her present vulnerability, her best strategy was to strike first.  But if she intended to survive, she should try to come away with something more valuable to Starfleet than just her life.

“ _Since we will both die, tell me one thing,”_ she said.  “ _What did the Empire intend to do, if we had believed you were leading Khati into talks with the Federation?  Would you have told them to bring ships here to attack our diplomatic convoy?”_

Her attacking hand now rested on the side of his neck, along the line of the artery, feeling his pulse just as he felt hers.

 _“No,”_ he replied.

And his eyes, ever the betrayer of his mind, taunted her with the possibility that she would get nothing more.  Irritated, she bared her teeth and touched the tip of her tongue against her two canines.  He took her threat seriously.

_“The Empire would have allowed talks.  They would have agreed to an adjustment of the Neutral Zone.  And Khati would become a perfect vehicle through which to infiltrate the Federation.  On Khati a Romulan may be concealed, may appear to be a friend.”_

_“Or a lover.”_

Aehallh sighed.

_"You are most pleasing company, Nei’rrh.  I am sorry you insisted on the answer to a foolish question.  I might have spared --,”_

The point went in cleanly, easily, drew a tiny dot of green blood.  She expected his eyes to register surprise.  But they were calm, too calm.  They looked more Vulcan than Romulan.

“Computer,” Commander Spock said in Standard, “begin counting down.”  And she felt him prick her throat in the same way, the same place.

“Commencing dicydripan poisoning countdown from one hundred and twenty seconds,” a computer voice replied from the Rh’iov’s controls.

It amazed her, how her brain went straight through the shock and concentrated on what it could get done in the time she had left.  She threw herself off the bed, rolled onto the floor close to the waiting compact.  She turned it upside down with the heels of her hands, not trusting her fingers.  She picked it up in her teeth and started to crawl, as fast and as far as she could, in case Aehallh tried to come after her.  All the while she was putting together the clues that hadn’t pointed to any clear solution before now.

When the computer announced the last forty-five seconds, she considered it reasonable to assume that her legs and arms would have given way under her.  She put the compact on the floor, activated the comms link with her nose.

“Uhura to Kirk, come in please.”

“Kirk here.”

“Captain, keep this channel open and recording, no matter what.”

“Sure.  Why?”

“If you want the shuttle to fly, you’ll need to stun McCoy and disable his tricorder.”

“What?”

She could hear the arguments start, and the background noise.  She kept on talking – told them what the Romulans were really planning for Khati.  Told them to review her analyses of the data from the Alpha and run similar ones for both shuttles, because she was certain they would back up her accusation against the doctor.

That left ten seconds until her heart, theoretically, would stop.

“It’s been great working with all of you.  Uhura out.”

***

Spock sat up and released the fastenings on his boots.  The computer’s voice paused for fifteen seconds after the timer had counted down to zero, before it added, “Thank you, Cadet Uhura, for your participation in the Alpha Incognito simulation.  You may consider yourself relieved from duty while your performance data is evaluated.  You will be contacted by your commanding officer with a date and time for the crew debriefing.”

That was when Nyota lifted her head off the floor.  She sat up slowly.  She combed back her hair with the fingers of one hand, and that hand stopped to rest at the top of her head.  She stared out the window and blinked frequently.

As there were blizzard conditions outside, Spock assumed she needed time to think.  He shed his ruined trousers and stood, walked over to the controls.  He opened a communications channel.

“Sub-Lieutenant Jadillu?”

“Yes sir?”

Gaila’s voice had a peculiar quality, a hoarseness.  That had not been the case when they spoke four hours and twenty-eight minutes ago.

“Please note that the Rh’iov Aehallh was also poisoned by dicydripan injection, four point two seconds before Cadet Uhura.”

“Noted.  That explains why you didn’t chase her.”

As expected, he heard Nyota moving.

“No, Sub-Lieutenant.  Aehallh did not chase Nei’rrh because he did not realise she had the means to communicate with her crew.  And you will have noticed how effectively the Romulan commander was constrained by the remnants of his clothing.”

Given the speed of her approaching footsteps, Spock did not expect the current conversation to last much longer.

Gaila sighed into the comms transmitter.  “That was absolutely --,”

The channel was cut dead.  The hand Nyota used to do that was balled into a fist.

“An appropriate point to interrupt,” Spock said, as he turned to face her.

He drew his arms behind him and clasped his hands together over the base of his spine, a gesture he could honestly say he found difficult to forego during the simulation.

“Gaila has been watching us all this time,” Nyota said.

From experience, he had learned that she employed this flat intonation when her words delivered more than a statement of fact.  It would be an error to simply affirm her observation.  That tone of voice always demanded an explanation.

“I believe every Alpha crew is advised that they will be under surveillance throughout.”

Her fisted hand relaxed and moved off the controls.  Nyota folded her arms under her breasts, and turned her face away from him.

“Given the possible scenarios which might play out between yourself and the Rh’iov Aehallh,” Spock added, “I did not believe you would want our interactions to be observed by anyone else.”

She inhaled and exhaled deeply.

“But she would have seen us--,” and she stopped herself, leaving him to infer the word ‘naked’ on the basis that there was nothing noteworthy about Gaila seeing them otherwise.

“She would have seen you--,” and she pointed to his groin.

“My impression of Orion culture,” Spock replied, “is that they are no more troubled by the sight of sexual activity than humans would be watching each other eat.”

“But doesn’t it trouble you?” she demanded.  And she was not pleased when he shook his head.  She walked away.

“It isn’t Vulcan,” she complained.

“It is not,” he agreed.

He watched her as she went back to the insulated glass wall.  Silhouetted against the cold whiteness of snow, she made him think of warmth, and the comfort of warmth.

“To the best of my ability,” he added, “I have always striven to be Vulcan.  But I am learning, in different ways, that the best of my ability is not adequate to meet every situation.”

She allowed him to see her eyes, the eyes of Nei’rrh, briefly.  He considered whether it would ever be safe to tell her that her cosmetic transformation had been sub-lieutenant Jadillu’s suggestion.

He tried a different line of reasoning.

“We have both acknowledged our debt to Gaila, for the efforts she made to bring us together.”

“There must be another way we can repay,” Nyota insisted.

“Yet to obtain her help myself, it was necessary for me to share more with her than I would consider confiding to any Vulcan.”

“Yes, of course, but--,”

“I also understand she has improved your knowledge of system vulnerabilities, by which you were able to access these controls.”

Nyota did not reply.  Spock decided to gamble, and move closer. 

“If we consider how much she must sacrifice to accommodate Terran cultural norms, this brief opportunity for compensation --,”

“For voyeurism,” Nyota corrected him. 

“Is this also the term we should use when the katra of T’Shin observes us?”

 _“How dare you!”_ she dropped back into Rhiannsu, and hissed the words at him.

But she did not bite him, his venomous animal.  She let him come and stand close behind her. 

“On Christmas Day, your roommate could not comprehend your actions, when you left your piece of _vokaya_ in front of the icon.  And you explained to her, how much better it was to express gratitude by sacrificing what was precious to you, what you would not be inclined to give away.”

Outside, the wind had calmed.  The snow had only gravity to obey and fell in straight trajectories. Visibility was sub-optimal, but the gaping mouth of the Alpha shuttle bay could be seen.

“It seems your acting Captain has heeded your recommendations,” he said.

“Was I right?” she asked.

“By now,” he took one more step, because it would put his skin against hers and his mouth alongside her utterly captivating earlobe, “the shuttle computer will have announced their successful arrival at Starbase 23.”

He gave her three very soft kisses.  One against the point of her ear, one where the tattoo began on her jawline and the third where he had pierced her with the injection.  He rationed himself.  The staff debriefing would be called in ninety minutes’ time and his presence, compos mentis, would be required.

When he finished, Nei’rrh/Nyota turned to face him.  And he watched, intrigued, as she battled for control of the need he could feel through her skin.  Her right hand came up and hovered close to his chest.  One finger acted on its own impulse and traced a portion of the pigment which had been applied to his body, which followed the line of his anterior axillary fold.  She exhaled.

“I will order Sub-Lieutenant Jadillu to deactivate the surveillance --,”

“No,” she interrupted.  She recalled her errant digit, lifted her hand higher and presented him with her open palm.

“We will thank her again.”


	9. Greens and Blues

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OK, so I thought this would be the last chapter, and I was wrong. I figure you will all forgive me, because you are overdue for new material. On the other hand, you might want to kill me when you get to the end and realise where I have stopped. I could get myself arrested for torture ....

On their second trip into the valley town, Uhura and McCoy had additional passengers on board the reindeer drawn sleigh.  Four bodies in the back seat made a tight fit.  And even though the ex-acting Captain and ex-acting Medical Officer were as far away from each other as possible, it wasn’t far enough.

“Why would you do it?” Jim wanted to know.

“Say what you want about Romulans,” McCoy countered, “they know how to pay their agents well.  As in I was offered enough Ferrengi gold to buy my home state, if I’d have wanted.”

“But you wouldn’t do that to me in real life,” Jim argued.

“Well, of course I wouldn’t,” Leonard replied. 

“Then why did you agree to the simulation?”

McCoy shrugged.  “Thought it might be fun to play the villain,” he said.  “Doctors can’t always be the good guys.  We get bored.”

Sulu chuckled.

“That is not funny,” Kirk said.

Ben Song rode up front with the driver.  He turned round to stare at his favourite cadet.

“Kiki,” he asked, “is he still going on about this?”

Hikaru’s new pet name, so Nyota found out. 

“Hey, I didn’t guess it was Leonard either,” Sulu said, “but I’m not losing any sleep over it.”

“Believe me,” Ben said, but more loudly, “that is _not_ why he’s losing sleep.”

Sulu took off his Santa hat and tried to throw it at his new lover, but Ben ducked and the wind gusted and the hat was carried off ahead of them, like it wanted to show the way.  McCoy started singing ‘Jingle Bells’ and (almost) everyone joined in.

It was a lovely way to finish their time together.  As the sleigh drove into town, all the people who had played their parts as citizens of Khati were there, standing on the sidewalks.  They came in their everyday winter clothes with their real life human faces, so they could wave and cheer the Starfleet cadets who wore ridiculous holiday costumes to their debriefing, on Captain Pike’s orders.  To be fair, it probably did not help Kirk’s mood when he was presented with his outfit and realised he would appear in public dressed like a donkey.

He shouldn’t have worried.  When their commanding officer met them at the front door of the cedar chalet overlooking the river, he was wearing a turkey costume, complete with a bustle at the back to support an impressive fan of tail feathers.  It meant he waddled upstairs and along the corridors to the room which had once been Santa’s grotto.  The fireside furniture had been replaced with a boardroom table, surrounded by chairs which were not designed with his plumage in mind.  The cadets could all sit down, but the captain of the Enterprise had to stand.

“Laugh at me now,” Pike said, as they took their places.  “Better to get it out of your system.”

He gave them exactly twenty seconds to do that, before he got straight down to business.

“So,” he spread his files out across the top end of the boardroom table.  “I’ve been through the material submitted to me by your assessors.  As you can imagine, I wasn’t able to watch you all personally, though some of the things I did manage to see were,” Pike paused to clear his throat, “interesting.”

He didn’t give them permission to laugh again, and no one did.

He began with Sulu, and talked in detail about the shuttle refurbishment, asked him questions about the engine diagnostics and every decision he made when their escape flight failed.

To Uhura that debriefing seemed relaxed, just two men talking about machines, swopping handy hints and tips.  She would never diminish what Sulu did; they would have been nothing but scattered human remains if he had not done his job well.  But the discussion seemed all of one level – an engine had no hidden depths, no cultural baggage, no political ambitions or ulterior motives.  Engines couldn’t get together and collude, to give their maintenance crews more complex problems.

When the captain gave him an A grade, Hikaru said, “Seriously?”

“You thought it would be higher?” Pike asked.

“Lower.  I thought there might be deductions for, you know, some of the interesting things you might have seen.”

The older man grinned, rearranged the PADDs in front of him.

“Uhura,” he said, without further comment on Acting Navigation, “I think everyone is dying to know how you identified the traitor in your midst.”

“Heck,” McCoy interjected, “she died finding out.”

Nyota sat forward in her chair.

“I knew the Rh’iov Aehallh had been sending more than just distress calls to the Alpha, but the signals were masked by subspace interference.  I had to analyse the intervals between signals, and from that I knew the mystery communication reached the Alpha through some kind of handheld device.  There were numerous possible devices on board ship, but fewer on the shuttles.”

“Correct,” Pike said.  “But McCoy had just beamed down to the surface of Khati when the Alpha’s problems began.”

“That did prevent me from suspecting him at first,” she admitted.  “It was only after the simulation ended that I was able to confirm that the doctor left his tricorder behind – an act that could only be deliberate, since the purpose for his transportation was to treat patients.”

Pike nodded.  “So when did you start to realise?”

“During our unexpected return to Khati.  I realised then that the only time we had not experienced engine failure was during the shuttle’s test flight, when McCoy was not on board.”

“But you didn’t say anything.”

“We had a more dangerous enemy to deal with first.”

The captain raised one eyebrow, as if in tribute to his former Science Officer, and let it fall back again.

“That reminds me,” he said, “how is your gate?”

“Gate?”

“Gate.”

It took Nyota a few seconds to realise he must be talking about the alterations to the back fence between Messier Clusters 18 and 20.  That seemed like years ago.

“Oh,” she said, as soon as she understood, “it’s fine.”

“Good.  But we’ve digressed.  You went to confront your Romulan.”

“And when I was injected with the identical substance the doctor gave me, a top secret Federation formula, I knew.”

“So you did.  The view of all the assessors is that I should award you grade A with distinction.  Which I have.”

She was about to thank him, but Pike dropped his eye contact abruptly and rearranged his notes once again.

“Kirk,” he said.

“Sir.”

“This was the officer you figured you could afford to lose when the simulation begun.”

Jim did not reply.

“Lousy old Communications, eh?  I remember Joe Melkadze, my last officer on board the Farragut.  Couldn’t calculate navigation coordinates quickly -- unless you didn't need them to be correct.  And he was hopeless with repairs.  He wouldn’t have recognised a goddamn soldering gun, and I sure as hell wouldn’t have let him use one.”

Nyota fisted her hand under the table and gave the air a little victory punch.  She’d heard about Melkadze; now she knew how she compared.

“I can think of three times when I would have died,” Pike laid emphasis on the last word, “if Joe had not been around.”  

Kirk sat like he was made of stone.

“I’ve gotta be hard on you Jim, because I nominated you.  Starfleet exploration isn’t some galactic drag race, where you get to hang out with the guys in space and tinker with your shiny, warp capable vehicles.  You are leaving Earth.  You will encounter intelligent beings on their home turf, who will not speak Standard, and whose cultures will be a mystery.  But whatever you think of them, and whatever they think of you, you will not be able to ignore them.  Oh, and while all that is going on, there will be thousands of bits of information produced on board your ship every goddamn hour, and you won’t know which of those might become critical to your survival.”

Jim took a long, slow breath in and out.

“Gotcha.”

“There’s more,” Pike told him.  “Something somebody once said about your dad.  How did it go?  He thought too much of his friends, and too little of everyone else.”

Nyota shut her eyes.  She actually felt sorry for Kirk now, being reminded, on top of everything else, about his father’s shortcomings.

“I don’t want to hear the same thing said about you.  A Starfleet captain must understand that the people who can do the most damage are the closest, the ones with the most intimate knowledge of the person who sits at the centre of the bridge.”

When Uhura next looked at her former acting Captain, he seemed resigned to his fate.

“Fail?” he asked Pike.

“Not that bad,” the older man said.  “You might have taken it down to the wire, but you realised the truth in time to salvage your reputation.  I’ve given you grade B.”

***   

When the debriefing ended, they were each assigned their own accommodation in the chalet and told to get a good night’s rest.  They would be summoned early the next morning and beamed aboard the shuttle that would return them to San Francisco.

Maybe this did happen to the others.  But when Nyota received the call to report downstairs she found herself crossing the chalet courtyard alone.  There was no one but one of the Canadian personnel waiting in the transporter room.  And when her molecules had been taken apart and put back together she found herself, for the fourth time, standing inside that modest chamber carved out from the summit of the mountain.  The familiar dark table facing her held two suitcases.  In one of the chairs there was a half Vulcan Computer Science professor sitting with perfect posture, dressed in his black faculty uniform, reading something on his PADD.

When he lifted his head and their eyes met, Nyota felt a pang of sadness.  Did Spock also?  She had decided to wear elf costume again, from yesterday's debriefing, thinking Gaila would want to see it.  She sashayed her hips, to make the tiny bells on the hem of her green satin skirt jingle.  Spock looked where he was meant to look, but his eyes did not change.

“ _S’ti th’laktra_ ,” she said in Vulcan.  I grieve with thee.

He set his PADD on the table, stood up and came close.  His hands smoothed the sleeves of her elfin green jacket, and his head inclined at that expectant angle.  They shared an off duty kiss: the kind where tongues were allowed to glide between their open mouths and roll together, and no time limit was imposed.  And then, by telepathy, they shared their paradox – the peculiar way they were excited to be kissing each other as Spock and Nyota, while simultaneously pining for their Romulan alter-egos. 

“If it’s any consolation,” she said when they finished, “Santa’s elves still have pointed ears.”  She drew back her hair on one side of her head to show him.  And then she squealed, because he dived at the exposed point and half sucked, half chewed.

“Spock …,” she said, a giggle in her voice because he tickled, “… the suitcases?”

He released her ear with a satisfied hum.  “I asked Sub-lieutenant Jadillu if she would pack yours.”

“Where are we going?”

“I have not been given authority to impart that information.”

“I see,” she felt him kiss the soft pad of her lobe while his tongue played with her earring.  “But I presume Gaila has been told, and has chosen suitable clothing?”

“It is my hope that she has not.”

“You are worse than Aehallh,” she told him.  He did not argue.  His hands slipped off her shoulders and a moment later she felt them slide up her legs under her skirt.  The little bells rang out like intruder alarms.

Thankfully, Gaila did pack a clean uniform.  What else would you wear if you found you had been invited to join the captain of the Enterprise on board his personal shuttle?  It was her first glimpse of the Federation VIP class, which had space closed off behind the flight deck where Pike could have privacy: a bunk, a small hygiene station and a ready room fitted with a replicator.  They joined him round his desk.

“Nice ears,” the captain complimented her, as Spock was programming tea.  

“Thank you,” she replied, working to keep a straight face about this lapse of formality which Spock, normally fastidious, had forbidden her to correct.

“Captain, may I ask a question?”

“Shoot.”

“How did you know about the gate?”

Pike swivelled his chair in the direction of the replicator.  “Spock, didn’t you tell her?”

Spock had asked the replicator to create a tray which would hold their three cups.  As he carried the drinks to the desk, he said, “I assumed that Sub-lieutenant Jadillu had pre-empted me, since she was the first person to use it.”

Nyota smiled.  “Gaila told me she made a new friend in Grounds and Maintenance.”

“Just the one?” Pike asked.  “Well, that explains why I didn’t need to pull rank to get a tight deadline met.  But Gaila doesn’t have the authority to raise or sign off a works order.”

Spock set down the tray and put Pike’s cup in front of him.  The captain lifted his tea like it was a champagne toast.   

“Happy Christmas, you two.”

***

Christopher Pike’s journey was just a friendly call.  He wanted to give his congratulations to a fellow Academy graduate from the class of 2229, Suleiman Haroub.  After nineteen years as Science Officer on board the USS Invincible, Suleiman had achieved promotion to the admiralty, and would replace the retiring head of Starfleet Africa. 

When Navigation announced they had reached their destination, Pike took his guests forward to the flight deck, so Nyota could watch the shuttle make its descent into Dar-es-Salaam.  She saw the coastline expand across the view screen, revealing more and more familiar and unfamiliar detail.  They landed on the roof of Starfleet headquarters, and when the bay doors opened, Zuri Magese was waiting to meet them.  She embraced Nyota as soon as she stepped outside into the blazing December sunshine.

“Welcome home,” she said. 

The next hour was more difficult than the whole of Alpha Incognito.  Zuri took them down to the seventh floor office, the one which had belonged to Admiral Migiro.  Nyota must have looked as unsure as she felt.

Before they could get settled into the comfortable chairs Zuri took her by the arm, making the case to her new boss that only a native could help her to prepare _vitumbua_ and real chai.

“So naughty of us,” the executive assistant said, with her same expansive smile, as they left the room.

“Suleiman will find out soon enough that we always have caterers.”

The two of them went out onto the balcony instead.  The air was ozone fragrant, breezy, and carried dozens of gulls’ cries.  Where the deck jutted out over the sea, there was still a table set up, shaded by a colourful awning.  Zuri pulled out two chairs.

“Twice you’ve been before,” she remarked, “but you’ve never enjoyed the view.”

Chai was brought to them, in fluted cups made from Egyptian glass.  Zuri took hers and leaned back with a sigh as if she had never enjoyed the view either.

Nyota really, truly wanted to close her eyes.  The last time she sat at this table, on this balcony, almost seven years ago, she had been so terrified.  Everything had loomed large, distorted, and seemed full of threat.  She had distrusted the roar of the waves; she thought they might be masking a more sinister sound.  And all the seagulls did was scream.  It was a fear landscape, inside her mind and out.  She had thought there would be no way to escape that fear.

“I, um …,” she said at last.  “It’s only that I wasn’t expecting …,”

Zuri reached out and patted her arm.

“I brought you here to assure you that Admiral Migiro didn’t say much.  She just advised Captain Pike that you might not react well if you knew your destination in advance.”

But today the view was beautiful.  The longer Uhura kept her eyes open, the more she could see that.  Distant bathers wore tropical colours; they might have been captured by single strokes of a painter’s palette knife.  She imagined floating in the warm, turquoise water and that gave her pleasant butterflies.

“How is the Admiral?”

“She’s a great-grandmother now,” Zuri said.  “She sends her regards.  She hopes the visit will help you feel safe.  You shouldn’t feel that you can never come home.”

“I shouldn’t,” Uhura stared out to sea.  

“Now your new man,” the executive assistant told her, “is a much better choice.  I read somewhere that Vulcans are very devoted to their mates.  And there is a mental link, yes?  It must mean you feel they are always with you.”

Always with you.  An odd feeling, like deja-vu, came and went as if it was ashamed to have occurred at all.

“I’ve booked you one of those lovely cabins on Kijiji Beach.  Captain Pike told me you have both been working very hard.  Now you can relax.”

***

Spock carried both their suitcases as they followed the sandy path that wound between the palm trees, carefully planted to keep each cabin concealed from the eyes of passers-by and other guests.  Theirs seemed to appear all at once.  The terrace faced them, shaded by the thatched roof.  Their footsteps echoed on the wood floor as they stepped inside the entrance.  Spock looked for a place to put their luggage while Nyota pulled back the mosquito net that was fastened to the ceiling beams and made a canopy over the bed.  The spread and pillowcases were various patterns in green and white, echoes of the prime colours she could see through their windows.

She removed her uniform boots with a sigh of relief, and enjoyed the relative cool of the floor as she padded over to stand by Spock.  He had laid both their cases on a low table, and removed their respective PADDs from the outer pockets.

“We have been given dressing instructions,” he told her, as he powered up his device.

“Eh?”

He showed her.  Gaila had given him a list: which shirt, which trousers, an optional jacket and instructions to choose flipflops rather than espadrilles if he would be walking on sand.

“That’s very thoughtful,” Nyota said, “but I can manage.”

“The sub-lieutenant asked me to urge you strongly, in the event you resisted.”

She fingered the edge of her own tablet.  If nothing else, she was intrigued.

Gaila had packed a white dress in crinkled paracotton, with an elastic neckline she could wear off one or both shoulders.  The PADD instructions said, ‘since I’ve been told I always know what to do with small amounts of fabric, I suggest using the pretty blue silk you wrapped round my Christmas present (see accessories pouch) to tie a snug bandeau over your hips.  With that, and the ruffle at the neck, I believe you could appear acceptable in public without the nuisance of underwear.’

Blue seemed to be a theme running through the layers of clothes in the suitcase, none of which Uhura had seen before.  She wanted to ask questions, but Spock had turned aside to remove his uniform jacket and t-shirt.  His bare back was a distraction.  So she pulled out the items Gaila recommended, and shut herself in the hygiene station.

Half an hour later they emerged from the cabin, followed the sound of the waves until the path brought them out of the gardens onto the beach.  Spock lost his footwear twice, because he hadn’t practised enough.  Nyota suggested he go barefoot instead, and tied one of her trailing tails of turquoise silk round the toe posts of his flip-flops, so they dangled and slapped against her bare legs. 

The other guests were few, scattered over the Kijiji surf and sand.  Here and there, thatched pergolas offered shade, seating and a comms links to the resort bar.  She didn’t expect Spock to choose one of these, and ask if there was anything she wished to order.

“Will this become a new practice,” she asked, “taking me out for a drink?”

Spock’s eyes shifted to the right.  This was his ‘I was not expecting this question, and will need time to consider my reply’ expression.  When she took his hand, she realised he was thinking about Gaila and Zuri at the same time.

“Sub-Lieutentant Jadillu suggested a table for two with drinks would constitute an appropriate scenario for my presentation,” he explained.  “Admiral Haroub’s assistant provided instructions specific to this location.”

“Such as?”

“She informed me that the beach would be less crowded and noisy than the resort bars, and that the waiters are often tardy, which leaves their outdoor guests with considerable privacy.”

She prickled his skin with her curiosity before she released his hand and sat on one side of the tiny table that extended from the central truck of their pergola.  She didn’t give away her admiration.  Somehow, between classes and simulations, examinations and marking, not to mention whatever preparations were needed for Alpha Incognito, he had done all this research and planning.  She checked how her dress sat on the balls of her shoulders, and tugged the neckline a little lower.

She ordered the drinks, swapping pleasantries with the unseen barman in Swahili.

“He asked if we were celebrating an anniversary,” she said, as she disconnected the call.

“How did you reply?”

“I said no, but I think something may be about to happen.”

His hands moved under the table.  “Perhaps the waiter will take longer to arrive.”

“Perhaps.”

His eyes seemed softer in light that reflected off white sand; his expression reminded her of the face which had sheepishly confessed to secret enjoyment of Terran female presentations such as painted toenails or lace.  He was stalling a little, with whatever he intended to do, watching the waves churn up tight and then roll out flat onto the shore.  She resisted the urge to touch his meld points -- just.

“My maternal uncle facilitated the first meetings between my father and mother,” he said at last.

“Is this Andrew, who also sends the Christmas parcels?”

Spock nodded.

“I did not know this before our visit to Vulcan.  It appears he provided a service similar to that which Gaila has availed me, because my father had no knowledge of human courtship expectations.”

His hands were now still, and he faced her squarely, as if this were a critical juncture in the event he had orchestrated.

“After a number of engagements, my father believed it was important to establish his satisfaction with the progress made and his intention to continue.  In diplomacy this would involve the signing of a cordiality agreement, but Andrew felt that this would not suit my mother.”

Slowly, carefully, Spock lifted his right arm and brought a concealed object into view.  It was a case, perhaps six centimetres square and shallow, made from a metal she could not identify.  There was a clasp on the edge facing her, intersecting angles.  Spock turned their sharp points in opposing directions, and lifted the lid.

“He suggested an item of jewellery instead.”

Only the pendant was visible.  The outline reminded her of the shapes she associated most with Vulcan: the pointed shards of towers in Shi’Kahr and the Hall of Ancient Thought, the pyramidal kir’shara of Surak and Mount Seleya itself.  Set at the centre was a diamond of blue vokaya.

“The manner of our coming together has not been conventional by Vulcan or Terran standards,” he went on.  “And while you have laid claim to me, I have wished to reciprocate with some gesture that would signify my considerable regard for you.”

Nyota blinked.  The breeze was still warm.  Her building, threatening tears might evaporate before they became evident, so they didn’t distract him from whatever else he wanted to say.

“Captain Pike contacted me ahead of your debriefing.  He did not comment on your assessment in detail; rather, he commended me on my ability to find hen’s teeth.”

Uhura laughed and a couple of her tears leaked out.

“Did you know that idiom?” she asked.

“The captain inferred from my hesitation that I required an explanation.  But I agreed, once I understood.  You are a rarity.”

Then Spock reached across the table and touched her, the pad of his thumb rolling its print over her cheek.  They zapped each other with excitement on contact, but rolling in behind his nerves was a luxurious warmth that washed over her like aqua sea.

“Had we remained only acquaintances, I would be fortunate to know you.  Had we served together under the same command, I would consider it an honour to work with you.  But to have --,” the temperature of his emotions rose several degrees, and there was enough of it to create an illusion of being cut off from everything else.  Their pergola had become a little island in a sea of wordless ardour.

Nyota caught his passing memory – Amanda Grayson insisting over his protests that he let her pendant perform its duty a second time.  She refused to give any details about how his father had presented it to her, but assured him that he would find his own way.  He had not been persuaded.

When he tried to speak again, his voice caught on the first syllable of her name, and that was all she could stand.  She grabbed him by both ears, pulled his mouth closer and began to kiss him gently but repeatedly.  Then she counted the seconds.  The effects of _shok_ had become her secret new speciality; a minute and a half of these would ease his immediate concerns – that he was struggling for words, that he had neglected to ask anyone what to do with the gift once it had been given.  Was he meant to put the pendant round her neck?  He had not studied how to open the clasp.

And she pushed his limits a little, to build his tolerance.  By the time the waiter arrived, Spock was occupying his chair the way a man on vacation should, accepting the relaxed tilt of the backrest.  He smiled when she told him Gaila had chosen her entire wardrobe to match the vokaya.

They ordered food.  The sunset was their dinner entertainment; Spock wanted kisses for dessert.

“Thirty seconds,” Nyota allowed, since she was already sitting in his lap and letting him lick her fingers.  “The journey to bed is longer, and you know Communications officers don’t make the best navigators.”

“Make … excellent … lovers,” he murmured between second, third and fourth helpings.


	10. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah, this is it, the end of Part 2. And I made it in time for Christmas. Hope you all have a wonderful holiday season - thank you for all the kudos, bookmarks and kind comments.  
> Oh, lots of Orion words in this chapter. I couldn't find an online resource, so I invented all of them.  
> One Swahili word, which I hope I used correctly. You never know with Google Translator. I'm hoping Angela will correct me if I'm wrong.

Nyota woke, rolled onto her back.  Overhead, the mosquito netting appeared to draw several shallow, nervous breaths in and out.  Then it swelled, leaving the sides of their bed, and had a violent fit of trembling before it collapsed, as if overcome by terror.  But it was only a breeze from her open window, changing direction.

It was, wasn’t it?

Beside her, Spock seemed to know that space had opened up between them.  His brow muscles buckled, folding the skin to cut a vertical crease into the middle of his forehead.  Her dress, crumpled between them and filtering the air he breathed, became his security blanket.  He grumbled inarticulately.  The fingers of his upturned left hand uncurled; the wrist rolled over into the fabric and he clenched it fiercely.   She reached out, stroked his hair.

“It’s all right, _ashayam_.”

It was, wasn’t it?

The change of time zones probably explained her broken sleep.  That and the sudden transition from winter to summer.  Yet her eyes knew the truth, because they began their inspection.  They scanned everything on her side of the bed: the ceiling beams, the minuscule gap behind a picture on the wall, even the folds of the shutters.  No space was too small.

When that revealed nothing, she sat up.  Darkness obscured the further reaches of the cabin.  From memory she could locate their suitcases and distinguish them as a slightly different quality of shadow.  Hers would look less tidy.  Gaila’s Christmas gifts from the Felladu outlet had been unpacked; Spock knew the precise location of his but Uhura had needed to excavate down through several layers of clothes.  The resulting silhouette of her belongings was more complex, had more places for something to hide.

But she could not know what waited beyond the protection of the canopy unless she risked leaving it.  The choice, as Nyota remained staring at almost nothing for several more minutes without feeling the least inclined to lie back and sleep, was unavoidable. 

Carefully, she eased her legs over the side of the bed and slipped under the netting.  She went down on her hands and knees in the blackness to grope along the floor, searching for the turquoise silk she had discarded not long after they returned from dinner.  All she could find was Spock’s shirt.  Nyota put that on, buttoned it, tiptoed to the door of the cabin and eased it open.

The resort strung lines of bioluminata from tree to tree -- fist-sized ones, mostly glowing blue, which marked the path through the gardens and the turnings for each cabin.  These also moved in the breeze, so that their shadows along the ground were restless.  And the white noise of the ocean mixed with insect buzz and the rattle of palm fronds.  If there were any motion or sound that needed to remain undetected, it would be aided by all this perpetual interference.

A broom hung from the outside cabin wall, near the door; a hole drilled through the handle allowed it to hang from a peg.  Uhura took it down.

- _Ko-fu-_

The katra of T’Shin, soul within her soul, called out for her daughter.  Nyota had the broom gripped in both hands, like a quarterstaff.

_-What do you fear?-_

Her Vulcan guardian had to ask, because at no point since Uhura woke had the source of her unease been visualised.  That was his nature, after all, to be somehow present without being seen.  And she didn’t want his face drawn up from memory.  Instead, she whispered his name.

_-Since Tiberious is dead, it is illogical to revisit these neurotic coping behaviours-_

“It is,” she admitted, but did nothing.

_-Please replace the broom-_

“In a second --,”

Nyota counted the multiple seconds which followed with growing shame.  But the presence of another mind, clear of shadows, was more than she had the last time she fell victim to this paranoia.  T’Shin was a model of composure, one she could copy if nothing else.  In slow motion, as if struggling with a weight greater than the hollow bamboo shaft, she drew the top of the broom handle level with its peg.  As soon as it was back in place, and her hands could relax, what had seemed so compelling shrank, was no stronger than any other old memory.

_-Return to bed-_

Uhura obeyed.  To start with, she put her pillows on the floor, so she could sit with her back against the headboard and meditate.  But all the shifting – to remove Spock’s shirt, get her legs folded and her posture correct -- disturbed her half Vulcan’s sleep. 

“…Ny…,”

His eyes, half lidded and glassy, probably could not focus.  But his sense of smell seemed to compensate when he was love drunk.  Spock could hardly lift himself but managed to shift across the mattress, flattening her discarded white dress, intent on his destination.

“Hey you,” Nyota ruffled the hair she had smoothed earlier.

“You --,” Spock said emphatically, before his face fell onto her left thigh.  And his mouth started to work, sucking the skin hard before letting go and licking her.  He paused long enough to ask, “Snofleg?”

“You ate all the snowflakes, baby.”

She smiled at the mention of Gaila’s gift to her: edible lingerie, three sets of filmy bras and panties frosted with sugary decals.  She might not be able to make them last until they returned to San Francisco. 

Spock let out a disappointed sigh.  But his hand slid under her leg.  His fingers, unsteady but electric with renewed desire, set off small, sweet spasms as they listed and bumped against her soft inner thighs.  They sent shudders through Nyota’s abdominal muscles and she thanked him, knowing this would be just as effective as meditation.

Her involuntary squeaks and gasps of pleasure fortified his resolve and coordination.  She felt his head drop to the mattress, and then he drove himself into her centre to join forces with his hand.  His back and shoulders lifted and opened her legs, pulled her down onto her back.

“ _Ashayam,”_ she whimpered.  She was afraid, but in a good way.  She could feel his breath on her _kuma_.  

“ _Shiv,”_ Spock replied, and tried again.  “S _hiv – shiva.”_

Nyota stretched out her left arm, remembering the last place she had seen it, and tried to locate the atomiser.

“ _Shivaa,”_ he managed all three syllables.  Gaila would be pleased.  Her offhand comment, the import of which she would not have realised, went something like, “All erotic terms in Orion can be pronounced while intoxicated.”

They weren’t going to give away all their secrets.

“Found it,” Nyota brought the bottle of _shivaa_ between her legs.  “You’ll need my help this time.”

He made an agreeable noise.  Uhura removed the cap from Gaila’s gift to Spock, then paused a moment to consider how she was going to get her aim right.  Someone’s head was in the way.

"Better idea,” she said, and sprayed the foam on his nose instead.  Spock grasped her reasoning immediately and grinned.

 _Shivaa_ petals could be harvested three times during an Orion year.  The oil extracted from them when crushed was a substance which attracted more species of pollinators than any other native flower.  It rewarded all visitors with heightened response to touch, among other things, so that small invertebrates stayed longer and returned more frequently. 

It took seconds, once Spock nuzzled into her, for the effect to register.  Starting with a warming sensation, the product could convince the pudendal nerve that single caresses were multiple.  So every stroke with fingers or tongue echoed, the ripples of feeling overlapping.

Nyota knew not to try and own the experience, distinguish what was starting from what was fading out.  She just tipped her head back, closed her eyes and let her control erode from wave after wave of … she had no words in Standard. Orion had the best ones, a glossary of terms that served better than any language she knew.  _Velloh_ described the ticklish foothills of arousal, when the _demon_ was small and the female could still speak in phrases; _jizzam_ referred to the on and off ache of the climb, _lalom_ for the pelvic pitches and thrusts that searched for the perfect foothold to the summit, _taati_ for the vocal spontaneity.  _Thoummom_ was the occasional stabbing foretaste of the peak experience – _gazah –_ and there were suffixes that could be added to specify the epicentre and magnitude of the orgasmic quake.  _Jiddanur_ were the aftershocks.

 _Shivaa_   could quadruple it all.  And since their skins could speak to each other, what made Uhura pull the sheets and wail washed through Spock, inspiring a sympathetic response.  She saw the same sparks and colours that flashed before his eyes, caught snatches of the music only he could hear and definitely felt the euphoric injection that reduced him to a limbless, liquid state of mind.  

Afterwards, there was _hatah_ , a recovery interval.  In reaching climax, Nyota had writhed and clawed her way back to a semi-seated position against the headboard, and had hair sticking to her forehead and throat.  Spock rolled onto his back and displayed an erection primed by cunnilingus.  His lips puckered and relaxed; she could not tell if he was trying to speak or still believed he was kissing her.  

Once she caught her breath, she located the little Felladu canister a second time, and twisted so that she could use Spock’s side of the bed to lift herself onto her hands and knees.  And then she crawled on top of her lover.  She licked her finger and drew wet lines along his tattoo, his real tattoo.  Like her, he had the temporary markings removed after the simulation.  But the Khati surgeon was a body artist in his human life, and agreed to paint a permanent motif of Romulan blades in an arc round Spock's left nipple.  Nyota loved it.

Her ministrations drew a complaint.  He whined a blurry rendition of her name, “Naaaaay--,” and clenched both hands.

“It is your turn,” she agreed.  She shifted backwards to position herself over his _lok_.  She sprayed a little shivaa on the head before she filled herself with him.

Spock’s drowsy eyes opened wide on her down thrust; a startled “Oh!” burst from the back of his throat.  She paused to enjoy his expression, stricken with pleasure, before pumping hard and fast to build up his cacophony of overlapping stimulation.  He bellowed; she cheered.

In the aftermath, she could not say who fell asleep first.  She sprawled half on and half off him, her face in his neck, her back to the window.  She remembered a breeze that pushed the mosquito netting against her legs, but after that nothing.

 

END OF ALPHA INCOGNITO


End file.
